


Growing up as a Holmes

by JustBTrue2WhoUR



Series: Trying to be True to Who You Are [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustBTrue2WhoUR/pseuds/JustBTrue2WhoUR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and Molly become best friends at a young age and are rarely seen apart. As Sherlock grows up he is taught by his politician father that one must only love a certain type of person as that is what life must be as a Holmes. Sherlock witnesses his brother struggle with this exact concept but Sherlock cannot understand why Mycroft listens to his father when it is obvious that he can never love who his father wants him to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whizz, Bang, Pop

Chapter 1: Whizz, Bang and Pop

Location: Surrey, England  
Date: 30th June 2006  
Sherlock's Age: 8

 

This was not Sherlock’s idea of a great day, even though one of his favorite things, experiments, would fill his day. Unfortunately he would not be the one conducting them and he could therefore conclude that the experiments would be age appropriate and boring. He didn’t need to go to some chemistry show to watch experiments. He could easily do more challenging ones at home with his brand new chemistry set.

He leaned back in the very uncomfortable plastic school chair that he had been placed in after his brother wished him luck and made sure that the organizers of the event had his mobile number in case of an emergency (which often happened when Sherlock was left with a bunch of children his age). The only reason why Mycroft was being pleasant towards his sibling was the promise of money from his parents if Sherlock returned from the Chemistry show unharmed, feed and ready to bed by the time their parents returned from some posh dinner party.

Sherlock did not understand why he had been sent to a stupid Chemistry show (even its name was stupid. Who in their right mind called chemistry show Whizz, Bang and Pop.) He was used to being palmed off on various nannies or his older brother from a very young age but when he was told that he would not be able to be looked after by a new nannie, so that he could see how long it took him to annoy her enough to leave in order for him to spend some quiet time with a book, he was not very happy. At first he refused to move from his bed, which he had just got into after a night of experiments but after half an hour of moaning and biting, Mycroft had to pour water over him in an attempt to wash him without the hassle of making him have a shower. He did not want to spend another day cooped up in the house with a bored Sherlock and instead fancied a day out with his girlfriend. He also hoped that Sherlock might, in fact be able to make some friends as there was bound to be someone there who was on the same intellectual level as his genius brother. After a lot of huffing and panting and heaving and spluttering, Mycroft managed to haul Sherlock into a taxi that would take them both to the local village hall where the demonstration was being put on.

At exactly nine o’ clock, Sherlock’s thoughts were stopped briefly by the beginning of the chemistry demonstration. Sherlock even managed to keep his mind solely on the experiment for thirty minutes but after that long time of mind silence he could no longer pay attention to a man cooking an egg and then pouring nitrogen gas over it in order for it to resume to its previous state any longer. As Sherlock returned to his normal state of silence, he started to keep his brain occupied by doing his party trick that Mycroft had recently taught him because Mycroft wanted to be able to take Sherlock out in public with him without making a complete scene due to his lack of entertainment.

This is the first life lesson that Mycroft had offered Sherlock that he had actually appreciated and found useful. Its not that Mycroft was a bad older brother; he was always there when Sherlock asked questions that no one seemed to want to answer but recently Mycroft had become quite distant, preferring to stay in his room instead of helping Sherlock with his experiments. He had even started to date some girl in his year who was always twiddling her hair around her finger and wore very poignant expensive perfume that smelt like hydrogen sulfide. He was starting to act like a typical teenager. His brother had told him once that being sentimental can ruin your life. So why was Mycroft ignoring his own advice. It was like he didn’t know him anymore. Everything about him seemed so fake. 

Sherlock decided to stop thinking about his irritating sibling and concentrate on perfecting his new skill because he hoped that eventually his skill would become useful for his future job prospects. As Sherlock sat in the increasingly uncomfortable tiny plastic chair that made a very harsh noise with every slight movement, he started to use his skill so that he could possibly figure out the life stories of everyone there so that he could annoy them enough so that they would leave him alone during the two very long breaks.

However Sherlock would later find out that this was an unrealistic assumption because he underestimated the power of one girl in particular. Molly Hooper.

Molly Hooper did not stand out in Sherlock’s mind at all and was probably the only reason why he was so shocked about how she was not like any of the girls he had ever had the disappointment in meeting. When he first spotted her in the first break of the day, he recognized her face from one of the social gatherings that his parents had dragged him along too as he looked cuter than his brother due to his age and dark brown curly hair that fell perfectly formed around his face adding to the cuteness of his prominent cheekbones. But other than that, she was just a normal rich posh girl who seemed to get everything she wanted according to her designer clothes and new Alice band that kept her long hair out of her face. She also fitted into the “popular group” and with that fact alone, Sherlock did not want anything to do with her in the slightest. However Sherlock had stared at her for a little too long and her friends were starting to point towards him and whispering in their little girly high-pitched voices. She turned around just as Sherlock looked away, paying too much attention to his plain cheese sandwich. He quickly looked up wishing that she wasn’t looking at him so he could return to improving his skill but she was looking at him and smiling. Like a friendly smile! Not one that was meant to cause irritation. He quickly smiled back trying to be friendly just as Mycroft told him to be when confronting girls.

After 3 hours of playing a chemistry scavenger hunt around the hall, it was finally lunchtime. Sherlock found the scavenger hunt very boring and tried to get out of it numerous occasions and in the end the organizers said that he could help with the next experiment if he joined in and stopped ruining it for the other children. Sherlock began to make his way to his seat when he saw a girl sitting in his seat. It was the girl from early. He quickly spotted a nametag on her sandwich box and realized who she was. Molly Hooper. Baron and Baroness Hooper’s daughter. He remembered his parents telling him about them once when he was forced into going to the Baron’s birthday party. They were rich. Extremely rich. Even richer then his own father who practically ran the government and had inherited the whole of the family fortune as he was he was the sole heir.

“Hi I’m Molly. Molly Hooper. We met before at my dad’s birthday party. We were about 5 years old and you had to borrow my clothes because you had managed to eat enough cake to make you sick.” The girl quickly confessed in front of all her friends. Luckily none of them were listening but the fact that she had tried to humiliate him in front of everyone made his stomach burn with furry.

“Thanks for reminding me” Sherlock snarled, but took a moment to compose himself so that he could rebuke a very cunning reply, “As much as I appreciate your attempts to humiliate me so that you can make more friends and seem cleverer than you actually are, it would be very nice if you could keep you dull and imbecilic mouth shut before you decrease your intelligence further.” And with that Sherlock stared at her intensely and walked away to find another chair just like his brother had told him to do when someone was being mean to him.

In the end he decided to hide outside the very unhygienic toilets that no one with the slightest bit of intelligence would use and he started to eat his lunch while trying to think of the best way to, whilst helping the organizers of the event mortify Molly Hooper enough that she would never have any friends in the near future and end the events so that he could go home to read To kill A Mockingbird.

“Hi… I was… just… looking… for you” Molly muttered, sitting down carefully, smoothing her dress out after she sat down.

“I don’t want to talk to you”

“Well I do. I didn’t mean to cause any offence with what I said. I just… wasn’t sure if you remembered me and I thought I should remind you.” Molly said blushing a light shade of pink but trying to cover it up with her hair. Silence awkwardly filled the air until Molly picked up the courage to resolve the situation, ”I actually though that your idea about improving the scavenger hunt by taking a dead animal and hiding it in different place in the hall so that we can find all the parts and correctly identify what animal it was, was very… good. Your really clever, even though one might say that your idea would turn the scavenger hunt more into a biology related one and not a chemistry one.”

Sherlock was shocked. He had not expected that when he saw her waking towards him 5 minutes ago. They sat in silence for a moment but they had to leave their hiding place imminently after they heard that the show was starting again. Molly stood up and held out her hand.

“Please except my apology.”

Sherlock briefly thought but even though his mind told him not to, for the first time in his life he followed his heart, grabbing her hand and answering “apology accepted.”

The day ended after the one and only explosion of the day and Sherlock practically cannonballed out of the room so that he could finish his experiment on different types of lichen. His day, in the end, wasn’t that bad. After Molly apologized they took their places in the hall among molly’s friend and he actually managed to enjoy himself as he even got to briefly help the organizers with 2 experiments.

When he managed to find Mycroft in the car park of the hall he started to drag his brother by pulling his arms but when Mycroft was still standing completely still among the grown ups, he bent down, grabbed his legs and started to pull with all his might.

“Mycroft!” Sherlock grumbled, puffing and panting using every possible muscle in his body so that he could overpower the giant teenager. “I can’t stay around these imbeciles any longer. I might catch their stupidity if I am among them any longer.”

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes! Don’t be so absurd. Now be a polite little boy and say hello to Baron and Baroness Hooper.” Mycroft practically shouted in his brother’s face whilst pulling his brother to his feet and raising his eyebrow so much that Sherlock couldn’t keep a straight face as his eyebrows were close to becoming tangled in his recently changed (Elvis Presley) hair.

Using all that he learnt in his elocution lessons, composing himself for a moment so that he could really focus on acting the part well, he held out his hand and said “Its so nice to finally meet you Baron Hooper. I was talking with your daughter early. She is really lovely. It would be so nice if she could come round and play, lets say tomorrow at 9? Your suit is really lovely… although you may want to try and hide the label…” Sherlock said leaning closer in and whispered “because you don’t want people to know that you go your suit from Matalan instead of Ted Baker. Would you now?”

Suddenly Sherlock felt a boney hand swipe him around the back of the head and then the said hand grabbed his wrist tightly, pressing the fingernails into the boy’s skin making him yelp.

“Baroness Hooper I hope to see you next Saturday at mummy’s dinner party and do let Molly’s nanny bring her over whenever is best for her tomorrow. Maybe she can show Sherlock how to behave properly!” and with that the Holmes brothers swept away from the bustling crowd elegantly (well as elegantly as one can dragging a eight year old behind him) and got into a nearby cab.

And this is how the very unlikely friendship between the two youngsters began. Molly and Sherlock met everyday from that moment on. Not always at the Holmes estate. Sometimes they went to molly’s house if her parents were at home and sometimes they went with Mycroft and his girlfriend to the park. Sherlock tried to tease the loved up teenagers but Molly would always try and stop him because it wasn’t right. Sherlock would get annoyed with Molly when she did this but they would always forget about it so that they could get on with another one of Sherlock’s mad experiments. They enjoyed each others company because they could act normal around each other which was a change because they were always having to pretend to be someone they are not around their very critical families. * 

Sherlock would never call Molly Hooper a friend in public but he frequently thought about her in that way when he had only his mind for company. Everyone knew that they had to make sure that the pair would stay friends forever because she kept Sherlock out of trouble and she seemed to have a little bit of a crush on the curly haired boy which could never be a bad thing. Everyone thought that Sherlock would never be able to get anyone to like him let alone fancy him so they couldn’t ruin his chances of a happy life with a wife and a few children! Well at least that’s what their families would believe would happen. It also helped that because Molly spent a lot of her time at the estate, her parents often had to come round to collect her and that helped keep the Holmes name up with the richest of the rich.

Some will say that Molly Hooper made Sherlock Holmes into the brilliant mind that he later became because she was the one who taught him how to never hide who is really is and that he should never be embarrassed by who he is.

 

*I just wanted to say as a kind of side note that both of their parents aren’t critical as such, its just that they come from families who expect people to act a certain way and therefore they have to force these rules onto their children so that when they are in public they will not let the family name down.

Also wanted to say that I will update again hopefully on Wednesday because I managed to type this up pretty quickly.


	2. Meeting Molly's Mates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly tried to introduce Sherlock to some new people in the hope that he will make friends with them before they have to start school. Will her interfering work?

Location: Hyde Park  
Date: 02/07/09  
Age: 10  
Rating K+ (for mild swearing)

These were the kind of days that Sherlock hated the most. The days when he had to socialize with his ‘peers’. Although, the word ‘peers’ implies that their academic knowledge is at the same level which, in Sherlock’s opinion, was not close in the slightest, unless everyone in his year knew the periodic table off by heart by the age of 9 and could translate a level Latin by the age of 10.

Molly had texted him last night only a few hours after they had last seen each other, to tell him that he had to come to the entrance of Hyde park tomorrow because she was going to introduce him to some of the people who go/ got into St. Edwards High School in the hope that Sherlock would make some friends before starting school so he wouldn’t look like a loner who could be picked on easily. Molly was aware of Sherlock’s previous attempts of schooling and did not want her friend to get hurt and end up being home schooled again. She liked the idea of being able to see Sherlock at school as well as outside of school so she quickly asked people on the St Edwards group chat on Facebook if they fancied meeting before school started. In the end John and Harry Watson, Rachel, Imogen, Henrietta, Anastasia, Greg, Fredrick, Tobais, Hugo and Edmund decided to come, making for a good gathering.

Sherlock got up early that morning not looking forward to the day ahead but having to go, nonetheless, because he didn’t want to disappoint Molly. At least there would be a mixture of boys and girls so he wouldn’t get bored when the girls started to talk about making and boys and when the boys started to play football but just incase things started to get boring, he picked up the first book he placed his hands on when packing his bag. He quickly got dressed into his only informal clothes (he didn’t want to look too weird when he was meeting people for the first time) and raced out the door shouting that he was going out with Molly and that he would be home in time for dinner.

When he finally reached the park, he swiftly managed to spot Molly sitting on a bench close by with another girl.

5ft 4  
slim, petit build  
mousy borwn hair  
11 years old  
low class (second hand clothes) or possibly punk (unlikely)  
2 cats   
parents together  
3 brother and 1 sister  
loves music. Plays guitar, piano and sings.

Her life story popped up in front of Sherlock’s eyes and floated around as he tried to focus on the smaller details. 

“Sherlock! Lock! Come over here” molly said ushering him over with frantic arm movements until he reached her and she pulled him into a very tight hug. She smelt nice, as always. “Sherlock this is Harriet, Harry this is Sherlock. We’ve been friends since her mum started tutoring me about 7 years… was it 7 years ago? Yes it was. It was just after I broke my arm. I remember now! But anyway Rachel is going to St. Edwards as well. She’s really clever, just like her mum! She even managed to get in on a *bursary* and she got a music scholarship!!!”

“Nice to meet you Harriet. You probably although you managed to get into St. Edwards with a music scholarship you shouldn’t let your practices slack. You probably should have had at least a 10 minute piano rehersal today considering that your music exam is in 2 days.” Sherlock stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“How.. What… Molly… What did you tell him! You know it is rude to tell people information about others that some would consider personal.” Harry pointed out to the taller girl.

“Harry. I promise I didn’t tell him anything about you. You know I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Molly declared trying to calm the situation down a bit, “You see, he has this kind of party trick that he does, it’s bloody amazing! He can tell you everything about yourself without even knowing who you are.”

“Wow that’s… cool.. I suppose. A bit nosey…but cool. Can you just try not to… read me again please. I like to tell people about myself when I am ready to tell them… when they have gained my respect. I am a little bit shy… sorry.” Harry muttered getting quieter and quieter with every word.

“CAN PEOPLE PLEASE STOP CALLING IT A PARTY TRICK! It makes me sound like a clown, which I am not. It’s called deucing and its actually quite useful. That’s probably the best reaction I have had to it though… except for Molly’s. Adults have too many secrets to hid and they don’t seem to like it when a 10 year old can realize their secrets in minutes.”

“Yeah adults just like to hide things from kids cus they think that just because we are younger, we don’t understand anything about life.” Harry said warming to the younger boy quite quickly after his little temper tantrum. “Most of the time though, I am the one teaching my parents things not the other way round so really I should be the adult and not them.”

“Yeah that’s exactly how I feel on the matter. I’m much clever than my older brother even though he insists that he is the brainiest.” Sherlock smirked, liking the older girl more and more as the seconds when on. He could now understand why Molly was her friend even if it was obvious that they were from two different backgrounds. 

“I have an older brother too. John. He’s over there playing football with Greg. He goes to St Edwards too on a bursary just like me. He’s only a year older than me but we always argue over who is cleverer but mum usually breaks it up before it gets too heated. We don’t really get on that well. If my brother had to decide who would get kidnapped out of my younger siblings and I, it would take him about a second to hand me over to the kidnapper.” 

Sherlock continued to talk to Harry until gradually all of Molly’s mates started to appear, introducing themselves to Sherlock after giving Molly a very friendly hug and sometimes even a kiss on the cheek. Most of the girls were obviously from very rich families because who would seriously give their child the name Anastasia or Henrietta unless they have a reputation to keep up with. 

It was a nice day out so after spending a few hours together, catching up with each other (even the boys joined in with this conversation, leaving their football in the middle of the field so that they could catch up on the latest gossip). Stories ranged from fabulously expensive holidays, to whose dating who and then onto football scores. Suprisingly Sherlock listened to the conversation intensly and even managed to add a few comments in which, everyone laughed at because they had infact been quite witty and very true. But eventually the boys and girls formed two groups, talking about gender related topics, both of which bored Sherlock but tried to be polite for Molly’s sake. 

After another hour of gossiping (although they would probably call it ‘catching up with the guys’ even though they were definalty gossiping) the boys went to play football, having to dodgy the numerous children who were also out enjoying the good weather with their parents or friends. Sherlock stayed sitting down with the girls but quickly got bored so excused himself from the conversation and quickly telling Molly some nonscence about outstanding homework which was a complete lie because he had done his only homework, a book review, on the first day of the holidays. He got up, grabbed his bag and walking towards a near-by tree hoping that the shade might cool him down. He pulled a book out of his bag and started to zone out, focusing all his energies on taking every detail about the book.

The tree, unfortunately did not help to cool him down so in the end Sherlock had to take off his shirt just like many of the boys playing football had to done. He wouldn’t say that is body was what girls would call “hot” or “fit” but he was slim due to the many meals he skipped and toned because of the boxing and karate lessons that his parents made him do as, according to government recommendations, children were suppose to get 1 hour of exercise each day and regrettably, Sherlock’s parents did not count completitng experiments as exercise.

This action did not go unnoticed by Molly’s friends and after many minutes of staring and admiring the view, something which they had not thought they would be doing 3 hours ago when they first met the boy. His body wasn’t the typical “hot” celebrity body in a magazine or anything but he was much better looking than half of the boys at their previous school and most probably their new one.

“Friggin hell. Molly. Your boyfriend is really fucking fit. Some may say that he even has a better body than Greg and he’s like… mind blowingly hot! Greg can catch me getting dressed in the changing rooms whenever he wants!” Anastasia laughed after he saw the face that Molly was pulling and everyone quickly joined in with Annie’s laughing.

“Oi, that’s my brother your talking about and he’s 5 years older then us… well 4 in your case… but that doesn’t mean that you try and put your fantasises into action. Anyway I don’t think he would be interested in any of you.” Molly remarked trying not to be too embarrassed. Since her half brother, Gregory Lestrade, had been staying with her after his mother died 3 years ago, all her friends ever did was talk about how ‘fit’ her older brother was. In some ways she could understand why some might think that he is attractive. He did do a lot of football which have him a faboulously toned body and when they went on holiday he tanned really well making him look like a model from Hollister but she just didn’t like her friends talking about him in that way! It doesn’t help when her friends decide to come round her house and instead of spending time with her, they spend all their time trying to get his attention. Half of the girls at St. Edwards were praying for a date with Greg as he was pretty much famous among the school population and was probably going to be head boy in a years time.“ don’t take it personally or anything. Your all really nice and very beautiful. Its just… you just… aren’t his type.” Molly continued without making it too obvious what she was implying because only a few people knew what Greg’s type was… 

“Come on. What’s going on with you and the bloody gorgeous but also weirdly brainy brunette? He seems like a nice kid. A bit weird but his body all most certainly makes up for that!” Anastasia simply stated like it was more of a fact than a statement.

“What! Sherlock! Nothing is going on between me and Sherlock. He’s just a friend. A good friend. He will never be interested in me. I don’t think he will ever like anyone in that way. It’s the one thing he cant deduce from anyone…. love.”

“He could be asexual I suppose. Which is ashame cus he is really sexy with his hair and all.” Another one of Molly’s friends, Imogen said.

“So you like him? You just don’t now if he like you back.” Annie replied.

“Yeah… kinda. But he’s a good friend. I don’t want anything to change between us. Plus we are too young to be doing all that. We need to focus on studying. Our GCSE’s are only a few years away and a relationship would just ruin them.” Molly tried to convince the girls who always seemed to be talking about boys and never about things that matter such as schooling and homework. Harry was the only one who seemed slightly normal on that front.

“SHERLOCK AND MOLLY SITTING IN A TREE. K-I-S-S-I-N-G” They all chanted while molly blushed, putting her head in her hands and wishing to just disappear. But when she saw Sherlock’s face, she concluded that she had to shut them up quickly because he punched one of them in the face.

Luckily for Sherlock, two of the boys who were playing football, came over to him and told him that he had to help get everyone some food. The two boys, whom one of which was Greg and he thought the other one was Harry’s brother John, quickly grabbed Sherlock by the shoulder and pulled him towards a local café to get the others some sandwiches. On the way they tried to calm Sherlock down as much as one can after being embarrassed in front of people he only met a few hours ago. They tried telling him to ignore the girls and that they meant nothing by it but in the end they saw their words weren’t helping the situation so they talked about other subjects until they reached the café. 

Sherlock quickly paid for the wide variety of sandwiches that they had picked up, before either of the boys could object. His parents didn’t like it when he came home with any of the money that they had given him as they thought that it meant that he didn’t have any fun so he didn’t mind paying for all the food. On the way back, the boys tried to tell him that he didn’t need to pay for the sandwiches, that it wouldn’t make them like him any less if he didn’t but after a lot of arguing the boys just decided to leave it. Sherlock Holmes was not one to argue with because he always won. No matter what.

Later on, after hours of football, laughing, hide and seek and eating, Sherlock actually realsied that he had managed to enjoy his day out and even made new friends in both Greg and Harry. They had attempted to teach Sherlock the rules of football after much whinning and complaining, but failed miserably because Sherlock just couldn’t see the point in running around kicking a rubber sphere about a muddy field, while getting hot and sweaty. All the friends decided to leave at 5 as it was getting dark so they all went their separate ways after exchanging numbers with Sherlock and telling him to get a facebook account to which he refused. Sherlock spotted Harry and John leaving the park the opposite way to the others and noticed that they were bickering, rather loudly, about how Harry hadn’t stopped the girls from embarrassing Sherlock but she simply argued that it wasn’t her place to step in.

“Not everyone who was there today will be in our year. As you already know Greg is 5 years older than us so will be in Mycroft’s year but John and Tobais are in the year above us. Although everyone else is in our year so hopefully there will always be someone from today in your class.” Molly explained as they walked down the country lane towards Sherlock’s house. Most of Molly’s friends lived in the village so they had been left alone to talk for about 20 minutes now. 

“Yeah Harry seems nice. Quite clever. I think I remember her being on my class list so I should be able to follow her around as much as possible until she gets bored of me. Hopefully I wont be called a freak on the first day if I hang around her.” Sherlock mentioned, not even realising what he said until he did. Molly just calmed him down so much and listened despite his moaning and he always found that he couldn’t help just blurting out things that he considered ‘too personal’ for anyone to know, not even his family. Especially not his family.

“Sherlock, you know, if anyone threatens you or anything, just come and find me and… I will sort it out… if you want. Or if you can’t find me, im sure… Greg would sort them out for you. He knows that if he does anything to make me angry I can easily make his life hell so he is bound to help you for me.” 

“Thanks.” The younger boy muttered not wanting to admit help but figuring that it might be good if he had some one to turn to if things got complicated.

As they reached Sherlock’s house they quickly said goodbye and Sherlock entered his house, utterly drained after such an exhausting day.


	3. Shouting at Holmes Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock plays at a concert while Mycroft is playing with fire. The Holmes family finds out some truths about Mycroft which they don't like. But Sherlock is left wondering "If two people are in love, why can't they be together despite what society thinks?"

Location: Holmes manor  
Date: 01/02/10  
Sherlock’s age: 11  
Mycroft’s age: 16

Today was one of the unusually loud days at the Holmes estate. Usually it was very quiet with the exception of a few shouts from Mycroft when he spotted the mess that Sherlock had made conducting one of his experiments, but for once Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were not at work and instead were remaining at home because later, Sherlock had an important violin recital that he had been working towards all year. It was so important that most of the extended family, as well as immediate family, was coming and staying for few days at the estate to watch the young genius at work. They were even going to go out and have a family meal together at a world famous restaurant in central London.

Due to everyone’s busy lifestyles, this had not previously been possible until today where they had all managed to escape from work for a whole day just to have some family time and celebrate, so they were therefore all very excited.

At 3 o’ clock in the morning Sherlock started the loud day by playing his violin in his room but later moving his playing to different rooms all over the house, in an attempt to calm his over active mind. However his playing stopped after Mycroft got out of bed and stole Sherlock’s violin from him, running back to his room and locking his door behind him so that he could get some sleep as he had a very important date the next day. Mycroft was really looking forward to his date and really wanted to impress instead of being too tired to have a decent conversation. 

However the mansion was not quite for long. At 6 o clock the guests started to arrive. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents and other family members (mostly from Arabella Holmes’ side of the family) started to arrive with numerous cases and presents for the Holmes brothers. Finally, once everyone had arrived, Mycroft went downstairs after having a shower whilst Sherlock began to get into the shower.

“Mycroft, it’s so nice to see you! My, you have grown” Aunt Louisa exclaimed coming up to Mycroft and pulling him into a tight hug.

“You too Aunty. Yes I know. Its what teenagers do you see.” Mycroft cunningly said hoping that this physical contact that he hated so much would stop.

“Mycroft! Stop being so rude. You don’t see your aunty often so you should greet her with respect when you do get the chance to see her.’” Arabella Sherlock and Mycroft’s mother said, trying to get her eldest son to treat her sister with respect because if he didn’t treat her with respect then he had no chance trying to get Sherlock to do the same thing. She glared at him, giving him the ‘don’t be a cheeky so and so or you will be going nowhere today’ look, “Now tell Aunty about your girlfriend, Lucy.”

“Ok mother. Yes she’s… nice… I suppose. Her parents are both surgeons and she wants to do something in the medical profession. She’s quite clever. She does well in all her tests so we have quite a lot to talk about. Were actually going out today because it’s our 6 month anniversary so I am taking her to a nice restaurant for lunch and then we are going to go for a walk in the park.” Mycroft lied effortlessly. Not many people at school would talk to him, let alone go on a date with him. 

“OWWWW. That’s lovely dear! Your all loved up! But…. Doesn’t that mean your going to miss your brothers recital?” Aunty Louisa said.

“Yes unfortunately I will but I will be back in time for dinner. And if Sherlock plays as good as he did at 4 o’clock this morning, then he will be more than ok. Plus I don’t really think that he needs me there, he is a big boy now. He doesn’t let me help him with his homework anymore so he should be perfectly fine at this recital.” Mycroft said smirking again. He was not going to let one of his bossy, irritating aunts guilt trip him into missing his date and going to his brothers recital again where he will hear Sherlock play the same pieces that he has heard him play every day for just under a year. He had heard them so many times that he could infact pick up the violin and play them without even looking at the sheet music.

When Sherlock came down the stairs, all the attention turned to him, making him feel very self-conscious but his entrance helped Mycroft escape from the mansion. 

After what seemed like hours of relatives coming up to him and making the ‘ow your so cute and because of that, I am allowed to hug and kiss you as much as I like’ routine, it was finally time to go. Sherlock quickly legged it upstairs to check that he had all his violin essentials and made a necessary loo break before heading straight of the open door and into his mother’s Porsche.

Without warning, Sherlock heard his name being shouted from quite a distance away from where he was standing. He turned around, looking to see if he was able to spot the caller and Molly Hooper came into his view.

She was running down the country lane that joined their house to the local village. She was wearing a knee length black and white spotted dress with a matching flower in her long, flowing hair. 

“Sherlock… Sherlock” she panted more and more the closer she reached to his house.

“I thought I missed you…. I set my alarm. Really early… so that I could spend as much time… as I wanted… getting dressed but-I-over-slept. When my parents woke me… I only had 15 mins to get dressed and… and get here.” She leaned over, placing her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. “I really wanted to be here. So I ran all the way. I wouldn’t miss you playing for the world.”

“uhm… uhmm I don’t know what to say… people my age… don’t usually want to watch me play. Most people aren’t interested in classical music as much as I am but… but you seriously want to watch me play?” Sherlock stuttered, for the first time in his life. He really didn’t know how to act to what Molly had just said. Through all of his school life, Sherlock had been the outsider, the one left out when everyone had to get into partners. However since Molly had come into his life he no longer felt alone in social situations. He could easily socialize as long as she was there right by his side to speak when he felt too overwhelmed to continue with a conversation and she was happy with this unspoken arrangement. He had even managed to make friends, most of them were from the day at Hyde park but he had also managed to get to know a few of Molly’s new mates from St. Edward’s. He knew that he would always prefer his own company, much like his brother did, however he was started to like the idea of having friends. But this was not a situation that Sherlock liked. This was way out of his comfort zone. She was getting close to him. Closer than he liked.

“Well I’m not most people am I” Molly replied without a second thought. She knew that Sherlock was socially awkward so she ignored the fact that Sherlock was blushing and quickly got into his mother’s car.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Molly's opinion, Sherlock’s playing at the concert was breathtaking. Not only because he played both of his pieces perfectly, but he also looked very handsome in his black suit and bow tie. 

When he finished his performance and returned to his seat in the audience, Molly planted a big kiss on his cheek as her way of saying well done! All of his relatives started chatting about young love and how adorable they were. Sherlock was utterly embarrassed, resorting to putting his face in his hands to hide his blushing. He just wanted the day to go perfectly and that involved not upsetting Moly so he tried to keep his mouth shut. 

Meanwhile Mycroft was enjoying his peaceful day out without having to worry about Sherlock being home alone. He met his date at exactly 9 o’ clock at the fountain in the village and sharing a brief kiss before making their way towards the cinema. This was one of Mycroft's favorite places to hang out with his dates because it meant that it was dark and there could therefore, be no eyes watching his every move. It was one of the bad things about being a politician’s son and he absolutely hated it. Why should he be storked around by busy bodies with flashing cameras just because his father ran the government? What he did was not of their business. 

Even though Mycroft did not like physical contact, he had been going out with his date for rather a long time and he had therefore began to trust the person who liked to run their tongue along Mycroft’s lower lip in a very seductive way before Mycroft let it enter his mouth. He had learnt over the past few months that he did not like someone to simply stick their tongue down his throat and repeated lick his tonsils before he had to come up for air so had asked politely if it was possible that he was not suffocated by a tongue, however sexy it was. 

After they watched the film (Divergent) that he did not particularly want to watch had finished, he grabbed his dates hand and dragged them out of the screening area, coming out with a few more love bites than he had when going in to watch the film. 

As he waited for their drinks in the local Starbucks, Mycroft quickly checked his phone to see if his parents had managed to remember him even if it was ‘Sherlock's special day’. 1 new message appeared on his old iPhone 4 and he opened the messages while taking his drink from the waitress. "Just got out of the concert. Sherlock was amazing. You should have been here to see him play! Traffic is terrible. Will be home in an hour and a half approx. mummy xxx"

"Where do u want to go now?" His date asking him while slyly grabbing Mycroft's hand under the table, "we could go back to mine but we have never been to your place... It would be lovely to see your place, My?" 

“And what do you suggest we do while we are at my place? Its not exactly ‘fun central at my house. You will get utterly bored in minutes at my house, I know what your like and I don’t want to listen to you complaining for an hour because your bored out of your little mind.”

“Your so nice Mycroft. You really know how to treat me don’t you? You know what we could do… well you now what I want to do…. As long as… no ones at your place.” Mycroft shuddered. He had been trying to avoid this for weeks but there was no way he could lie his way out of this one. Maybe if he tried it, he might find that he actually enjoys it. “I have all the necessary equipment on me, if you’re worried about that.” Mycroft felt a small package being placed into his hand and he slowly wrapped his fingers around it. This was the furthest he had ever gone with someone (and there had been plenty of ‘someone’s’ in his life over the past 2 years) but even if he completely trusted his date, he wasn’t sure if he was going to as good as his partner and he did not want to embarrass himself. He had to decide now what he wanted to do. 

"My place it is then" Mycroft replied, feeling a nervous tingle work its way down his spine, causing his to shiver ever so slightly.

************** 

When the musicians had finally finished playing, there was a giant applause and all the musicians were called up to the stage to receive their certificate. Then there was a final round of applause before everyone started to exit the auditorium. 

Luckily once they got out of the car park, traffic was very good and they estimated that they would be home in an hour possibly even 45 minutes instead of the 1 and half/ two hour long journey they had anticipated. At least Sherlock could watch a film in that time without getting bored...

When all 5 cars carrying the Holmes family in arrived back at the estate, all members of the family could hear loud music being played from inside the main building of the estate. Mrs. Holmes quickly got out of the car once it stopped and headed into the house. Mr. Holmes followed, leaving the car unlocked for Sherlock and Molly to get out. 

As Molly and Sherlock reached the front door the music stopped. All was silent for a few seconds but then the shouting happened. Sherlock was terrified. His parents sometimes argued but this time they were properly shouting with venom in their voices. 

"You little bastard get out of my house before I call the police."

"You little shit. Do you know who we are? My son will never be seeing you again. Ever. He's not... not... Like you." Percival spat out.

And silence descended among the house as their unwanted guest departed. 

"You ever come on my fucking property again and you will be dead, you fucking arsehole!" Percival shouted as he followed the boy out of the house.

Sherlock had never heard so many swearwords come out of father’s mouth before and was utterly shocked! What on earth had just happened and who the hell was this stranger. Was he a burglar or something? But the Holmes estate was considered to be very safe because of Percival's high position in government and there was therefore a burglar alarm in every room that went straight to the police if it was set off.

Sherlock and Molly moved into the house some more as everyone started to move from the hallway and into the living room to see what all the shouting was about. Sherlock pushed his way through the crowd. He had a right to know what was going on. He did live in the house after all. 

Both Sherlock and Molly managed to catch a glimpse of the scene in the living room while they were pushing through. Mycroft was standing in the middle room pulling up his trousers and his chest was exposed to all the family. His hair was very scruffy and all over the place and he had funny little marks all over his neck and chest. Sherlock wasn’t sure what they were specifically but he had seen them on Mycroft’s neck before.

When they reached the front of the crowd the shouting started again.

"What the fuck were you doing Mycroft!" His father shouted, waving his arms towards the sofa that Mycroft had previously been sitting/lying on.

"You know what you saw father. Your intelligent enough to join up the dots." Mycroft hissed, looking at the floor trying to find his t-shirt among the furniture.

"Mycroft. Don't be cheeky! You are in no position take that tone with me young man. Of course I know what I saw, I think everyone knows what they saw. But... I want to give you the chance to explain yourself."

"If I was his father, he wouldn't even get a chance to explain himself. He would get smacked right around the face until he understood what he had done wrong. He needs to understand that that kind of behavior is not right, not natural." His grandfather spat out, not leaving out any of his feelings.

"Yeah well you’re not my father are you.”? Mycroft shouted, still wearing only his trousers, " and father, Jim and I are together. We have been dating for a few months now. And you just walked in on us making out. If you had come back in fifteen to twenty minutes then you would have walked into a worst situation than this so you should be grateful that the traffic was so good because if you have walked in on that moment, you would have been even more disappointed in me than you are already. Although that is debatable because you seem to be absolutely fuming at the moment."

And that's when Lucius Holmes lost his temper with his eldest son and did something that he had not done in years. He pulled his hand back and punched him right in the nose. Everyone just stood rigid and watched as Percival lost control of his anger and hit his son. Mycroft tried to defend himself by moving his hands to cover his face but he was too late.

"Everyone stop. Please. Pleaseeeee." Sherlock screeched, begging for all the violence to stop. He didn't want his brother to get hurt. He hasn't done anything wrong. He didn't understand what all the fuss was about. He was just dating a boy. He was just gay. Of course he knew that some people thought it was wrong to be gay but there was loads of people at his school who were gay. Even one of Mycroft's friends at school was openly gay and his parents didn't seem to mind when he came round. So why was it such a big problem that Mycroft likes guys?

Everyone went silent. They just stared at Sherlock wishing that he had never witnessed that. 

"Sherlock why don't you go round Molly's house? I'm sure her parents won't mind...considering the circumstances." Sherlock’s mother said walking up to him and grabbing hold of his hand. She kissed his head and smiled at him sympathetically.

"I don't want to go. I can't leave Mycroft here!" Sherlock admitted, looking at his brother, pleading with him to come with him.

"Sherlock I can handle myself. I will be fine. Just go." Mycroft said sternly trying to pick himself up from the floor spitting blood onto the carpet.

"But you can't stay here, My..."

"I can stay round a friends or a hotel if everything doesn’t calm down... Just go to Molly's. You don't need to hear all of this. You are far to young."

"I am not too young. I know everything I need to know about life to understand that this is wrong. Father should not be punishing you just because you are gay and he defiantly shouldn’t hit you because of that. " Sherlock argued moving closer to his older brother. 

“Sin, you do not understand this fully. Its not right to feel things for someone of the same sex in a…. romantic way. Humans are meant to get together with the opposite gender and breed, to create the future generations not have same sex relationships that do nothing for the future population. Now just go to molly’s with your mother before I do something that will shut you up.” Percival insisted staring at Sherlock intensely.

“Ok”. Sherlock muttered hanging his head so that he could no longer look at his father’s face. Sherlock’s mother led them out of the house and towards Molly's house. She kept muttering that things would be ok and that it was just a bit of a shock that's why they were shouting and arguing. 

Baron and Baroness Hooper said that it would be their pleasure to have Sherlock stay the night and they started to get him settled into Molly's room putting a blow up mattress and sleeping bag on the floor next to Molly's bed.

They got ready for bed as soon as they had their dinner, not mentioning what had happened back at the house. Sherlock however, could not get to sleep. He kept replaying the fight in his mind and he realized that he should have stepped in to stop his father from hitting Mycroft. In the end Sherlock just sent Mycroft a text to make sure he was ok because he knew that he it was too late to do anything to make a difference.

Myc, hope your ok. I know we never really get along but I want to make sure you are ok. Where are you staying? I could easily smuggle you into Molly's room and you can sleep with me on the blow up mattress. Please reply ASAP. SH xx

But by the time Mycroft replied Sherlock was fast asleep, too exhausted from the dramatic day to keep his eyes open any longer.

When Sherlock woke he felt better... Until he realized what had happened yesterday. He went downstairs to find Baroness Hooper making breakfast while Molly sat on a bar stall licking out a bowl covered in chocolate. This was not a scene that he was used to in his own house. His parents were rarely around to make their own breakfast let alone make breakfast for the whole family. 

"Dearie, some over here. You can help Greg pick strawberries when he decides to wake up. Then we can all have breakfast together." Molly mother said happily while flipping pancakes in a pan and then putting them onto a large plate. Greg walked down the stairs just as Baroness Hooper was about to call for him again. She told him to pick some strawberries with Sherlock, telling him to be nice to Sherlock when she thought he couldn't hear her.

Greg showed Sherlock to their greenhouse, which was situated right at the bottom of the garden. He bent down and started to pick the strawberries, which were ripe enough to be eaten.

"No one can hear us down hear so don't worry about saying the wrong thing when you answer my question. Greg said looking Sherlock straight in the eye. “What's happened?”

Sherlock joined him in picking them and he told Greg everything that had happened, too worried about Mycroft to even start to worry about what should be considered personally. At least if Greg knew about what had happened, he might be able to help make sure that Mycroft was ok. Greg looked shocked at times but he stayed quiet listening to every word that Sherlock had to say.

"Wow! Is Mycroft ok? I don’t know him very well but we have to sit next to each other in Latin and I know that no one, especially him deserves to be beaten up by his own father.”

" Father used to discipline us when we were younger and we did something bad but now he is too busy to even see us anymore. I don't know what happened after I left but I am worried." Sherlock admitted, hating to confide in someone about such personal matters.

“Wow! I thought your father seemed pretty cool when we first met. I didn’t think that he was that cruel…”

“He’s not cruel! He just… doesn’t like it when we misbehave. I told you because I needed your… help. I didn’t need you to judge my family.” Sherlock spat out.

“Ok. Ok. I understand. Just tell me how I can help.”

“Thanks.. I sent him a text last night…” Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pajamas bottoms where he had left it the previous night. He quickly read the message breathing a sigh of relief because of what he read. "He says he is fine. Mother took him to the hospital last night to get the cut on his head stitched up. He stayed at a friends last night after father spoke to him alone. He also said that mother will pick me up later so that we can have dinner together because father needs to apologies." 

"Sounds like your parents are ok with it then. I thought they would be. They did walk in to see their son making out with a guy and they didn’t even know he was gay! They just needed to get used to it." Greg stated smiling at Sherlock while he spoke," I remember when I came out to my parents. Well Dad and Helen. They were upset that I didn't tell them, but after a few days they were fine. It will be the same with your parents they just need to get their heads around the situation."

"What!!! Your gay?" Sherlock questioned and Greg quickly nodded. "That's why you never date any of the girls that keep following you around! But you seem so… straight."

"Yeah I just don't want everyone to know yet. I don't want to lose all my mates just because I like guys instead of girls! Tell Mycroft that if he ever needs to talk I am here for him. You can tell him what I told you. I don't mind him knowing. It might be nice for us both to have someone to talk to about all this."

Sherlock smiled at Greg, stood up and went inside feeling a lot better for talking about it. At least Greg thought that everything would be ok and considering that he had been in the same kind of situation, he should know.

But Sherlock knew that his father only ever lost his temper when he was really angry about something and that told him that things would, unfortunately, not be ok.


	4. The Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock sees his brother for the first time after the incident at Holmes Manor. For a young boy, his view of the world changes once his father tells him how one should behave when out in public.

Sherlock's age: 11  
Date: 02/02/10

When Sherlock arrived at the restaurant with his mother, he was shocked to find his brother and father already sitting down talking.

"Sherlock. Sit down. Grab a menu and decide what you want because Mycroft and I have already ordered." His father said to him

Sherlock quickly scanned the menu picking a dish at random and ordering it before even looking at his brother properly. When he did mange to catch a look at his brother’s face, he was mortified. He had at least 10 stitches in the cut above his eyebrow and his eye was going a rather ugly blue-black colour already. He looked awful.

"Now, I have already spoken to Mycroft about what is going to happen but I though I should clarify it with the rest of the family." Percival said, trying to keep his voice down as he delved into the subject further, "we are not going to talk about what happened last night ever again! As far as everyone is concerned, yesterday never happened. Everything is going to go back to how it was before so that we can live normal lives. Mycroft will never see that... boy again and if he does... Well he has already been warned of the consequences."

"What does that even mean?” Sherlock interrupted, “So we just act like Mycroft doesn't like guys? Is Mycroft meant to just pretend to like girls to please you?" 

"Keep your bloody voice down, boy!" Percival muttered giving his son a stare that was not meant to be questioned, "Mycroft has informed me that he will do as I say without arguing and the same goes for you, young man. It's just one of those phases that some people go through. In years to come he will think it was just a stupid teenage crush and he will be married to a lovely young women who will have children to carry on the family name..."

"But father, it's not that simple. Scientist have even proven that most people who go through what you call a 'phase' are letting out the same normal chemicals that are produced just the when a heterosexual couple fall in love. "

"Now you are to listen to me and you are not going to argue with what I am going to say. Son, you have to understand that this is not right, not natural. What is the point in being put on this earth if you are just going to fuck someone from the same sex just for pleasure when we are put onto this earth to breed so that the human population can increase. So, we are going to eat our meal like a normal family and this subject will never be spoken about again. Do you hear me?"

Both boys nodded and Arabella just placed a hand on her husband’s arm, letting him know that she supported him. The meal was pretty much consumed in silence after their little argument and Sherlock was finding it very hard to keep his mouth shut when he totally disagreed with his father. Sherlock did not fully understand the concept of love in which normal 11 year olds would but he knew how the body reacted to such stimulus. Dopamine is released into the body. The body reacts by increasing the heart rate, making the pupils dilate, causing a rush of blood to the skin and then serotonin is released causing obsessive type behavior to occur.

All of it seemed pretty simple to Sherlock. Mycroft had clearly displayed all of those signs and he could not just simply turn them off because his father said so. This body would just not let him. So why was Mycroft accepting everything that his father said to him. 

After the meal, they all went home in separate cars, arriving back to their house in a very short amount of time. Sherlock could not see any bags around the house so he assumed that the rest of the family had either gone home or was staying in a near by hotel. His parents went straight up to their separate offices and were making their excuses about meetings etc. leaving the boys alone in the house until their nanny came to look after them. 

By this time, Sherlock could not stop thinking about what had happen over the past few days. His brain kept going over the facts again and again and again until Sherlock couldn't stand it anymore. He jumped off his bed and walked out of his bedroom, headed for his brother’s room, which was just down the hall from his own.

When he got closer to the room he could hear muttered voices.

"Babe listen father has gone mental. I can't see you again..."

"Yeah I know but...."

"I don't know... He's threatening to send me to boarding school if I don't listen to what he is telling me..."

Sherlock moved closer trying to hear exactly why was being said.

"Babe I know. I love you too but I really can't risk it. Even calling you is dangerous enough. I think my dad might have put a microphone on me. I know he has defiantly put GPS on me so he knows where I am so, I can't. I just can't"

The floorboard that Sherlock was gently placing his foot onto squeaked ever so quietly but he knew that his brother had heard it. And just like that the phone call ended.

"Sherlock what do you want." Damn Sherlock thought as he entered his brother’s very organised bedroom.

"Why are you letting father boss you around?"

"Well I know your not one for small talk, much like myself but your not even going I say hello?"

"I don't want to repeat myself Mycroft. Just answer the question."

“I will take that as a no then... Because he knows what’s best Sherlock. He knows more about the world than I care to admit and just maybe... He's right for once. If I can just keep my head down at school and concentrate on my studies then I might be able to do well in life. I don't need to get into a complicated relationship with someone who completely confuses me just so that I can feel some kind of emotional attachment to them that I cannot with anyone else."

"Your starting to sound like father. Don't you give a damn about free will, about being able to do what you want to do, not what father wants. Wait a minute did you just say that you did all this for the thrill of it?"

"Sherlock you are too young to understand any of this... No buts. Yes I started the… relationship hoping to feel something different, which I did. You might call it my own little experiment which, had very successful results but you don’t understand the implications of being with a… guy. I can’t just risk the family’s happiness for my… sentimental attachments. So Sherlock, can you please just leave me alone."

"So, you’re either going to try and ignore the results of your experiment or you’re just going to try and fall-in love with a girl??"

"No Sherlock as I have already said, I am not looking for an emotional connection with anyone. Male or female. And as you have just assumed that I am gay I would like to inform you that I have feelings for.. Both genders… so getting with a girl wouldn't be as hard for me as you seem to think."

"Oh right... I just assumed... This is awkward. I’m going to leave."

Sherlock left the room just as abruptly as he had entered. Slamming the door behind him as he went. Although the conversation had answered a few of Sherlock's question, he still did not understand the situation fully. It has been proven that you can't just tell your body to stop reacting that way for someone so how could Mycroft just ignore his body so easily after clearly being very close to that boy for at least 6 months. Maybe he just didn't like him as much as he wished he did and everything was just an act or maybe he had very good self control (although that theory was quickly dismissed by the fact that it was obvious that Mycroft had quickly consented to going further than just kissing with this boy judging by the redness of the marks on his neck which Sherlock had later found out were called love bites/ hickies)

When he returned back to his room Sherlock looked at his phone hoping that Molly had possibly replied to his text about an experiment on brick residue. He had 4 messages.

1 from Molly  
1 from Anastasia  
And 2 from Greg

He opened the one from Annie, quickly dismissing it as he received messages from her about the same thing pretty much everyday. Molly

He then went on to open Molly's message. She said she would come round in 10 minutes. Great. At least that would take his mind of the problems with Mycroft.

He then thought about ignoring the messages from Greg because they usually only told him that Molly was coming over and that he expected her home by 10. But after yesterday's little conversation, he decided to read them. 

"M said that she comin over soon. Mind if I tag along? Wanna speak to Myc bout some Latin work." GL

Myc? Why the bloody hell was Greg lestrade calling his brother myc? Sherlock realised that he couldn't really stop him from coming over to see Mycroft because it was his house as well and if he needed to talk about school then it was clearly important.

He read the second message.

"Bringin lots of treats to cheer him up. Make sure that it’s a surprise ;) 

Well this will be very entertaining Sherlock thought. 

20 minutes later, both Molly and Greg arrived at Holmes manor with enough food to feed a small army.

"Mycroft! Sherlock! Some people are here at the door for you." Mrs. Van Hooven, their new nanny called.

"Coming" Sherlock replied

"Not coming. I did not expect any company so I will be staying in my room." Mycroft replied sternly not wishing to talk to anyone.

Sherlock however ran down the stairs willingly, managing to get down the stairs before Greg and Molly had even had the chance to enter the living room.

"Mycroft is refusing to come out of his room. He just broke up with his boyfriend so I think he will appreciate all the food. He comfort eats when he is depressed." Sherlock said whilst dragging Molly and Greg up the stairs and towards Mycroft's room. When they reached his room, Sherlock didn't even try and knock and instead just barged into his brother's room. 

"Sherlock!! Get out now!! Before I hire and assassin to kill you!!" Mycroft shouted, getting off his bed and throwing a pillow at his brother. "You know the rule Sherlock. You must knock before entering. That's why I have a door! What if I was changing?"

"I know that but the door is stupid. If I knock you will just lock the door so I can't get in. That's why I don't bother with the whole process of knocking." Sherlock mentioned, siting down on his brothers bed while Greg and Molly just stood in the doorway.

"Hi. Well... Molly's just here to play with Sherlock.. So... Here she is." Greg muttered suddenly feeling rather embarrassed just standing in his classmate’s room. He went to turn and go out but he felt a hand on his wrist but it quickly let go. Molly was eying him nervously, not wanting him to leave so soon. Sherlock’s older brother still scared her after knowing him for many years now. He just had this sense of authority that hypnotized her into feeling very self conscious about the way she behaved with Sherlock. It was like he was looking down at her and judging her simply by how she looked.

"I know you are here to talk to me about… what happened yesterday. It's very obvious. Just say what you want to say and then we can pretend that you have no clue as to who I am or what happened here yesterday." Mycroft stated firmly.

"Well Sherlock...”

"Yes I know. Sherlock told you what happen. And no he didn't tell me that he told you. He doesn’t really understand the concept of a secret so its obvious he would tell you.”

"So... I just came to check that you were...ok?"

"And why do you care?! You have never spoken to me before so why do you want to speak to me all of a sudden?"

"Am I not allowed to care? We have known each other for.. What..3 years now and you have been my Latin partner for the same amount of time. We speak everyday in Latin, all be it only about Latin and school work but its still talking. I thought we had a kind of… understanding."

"That still isn't a very good reason for you to give a damn about me?"

"Well I know what you are going through. I can sympathize with what you are feeling and I thought I could help but I can see that you are just the stuck up prat that I thought you were when we first met." Greg looked at him with such a piercing look that Mycroft felt as if Greg was analysising everything about him in one quick look. Then turned around to open the door.

"That was an impressive speech that you just gave but you got one thing wrong. You have no clue about how I feel and you never will because we are two totally different people. WE…. HAVE… NOTHING… IN…COMMON!"

"Oh so the fact that we are both like guys isn't a common interest is it? Because I think it is. I also think that the fact that both of our parents went ballistic when they found out is also a common factor. We have a lot more in common then you realize, Mr. Smart Arse.” Greg shouted at Mycroft feeling more annoyed by the second that the boy in front of him would not admit that he needed help or at least someone to talk to.

Everyone stood still, shocked by the older boys words. Of course both Molly and Sherlock knew that Greg was gay but the fact that he had said everything so truthfully considering that not many people knew about Greg's sexuality shocked the pair. They never thought that Greg would want to reveal his sexuality, let alone to Mycroft Holmes.

"Oh... I don't know what to say... Shit.. Damn... Sorry." But that was the bit of the conversation that shocked Sherlock the most. In all of his life he had never known his brother to apologise without their parents telling him too. "I would never have guessed that you were... Gay. You hang around with so many girls though. You can't be. I can’t believe that I managed to get such an important fact about someone wrong. That’s never happened before." Mycroft said both stuttering and shocked.

"Well maybe this will teach you a lesson in how to be less cocky. And yes I am defiantly gay although you most defiantly are not JUST gay. Probably bi."

"Did Sherlock tell you that?" Mycroft complained, turning around to stare at his little brother. “He seems to have revealed a lot to you about me in what he believes was a very short conversation.”

"Nope. I suppose people call it a gay-dar. I think you would be shocked at how many people in our school are gay." Greg mentioned, passing his hands through his hair once he finished, briefly smiling at the taller boy looking at him straight in the eyes. 

“I bet I would. Its not really something that I have paid much attention to in the past.” Mycroft said, looking Greg up and down trying to gain as much information from the boy as possible, smiling slightly as he did so.

“Ahmmmm…. Sherlock come on. I don’t think I can watch this any longer. This is exactly what Greg does when he is chatting to his boyfriend on the phone. He puts his hand through his hair and goes ‘babe, I love you so much and next time you are round here... blah blah blah.’ Its really awful and… romantic.” Molly begged, grabbing Sherlock’s arm and yanking him out of the room. 

Sherlock however really wanted to listen to their conversation. Greg was nice in a kind of… ok way and Mycroft seemed to feel the same way. It was weird seeing Mycroft acting so friendly towards one of his classmates and he wanted to learn more because Mycroft had only ever had one friend throughout his whole school life, Amelia but she was different. She was nice. Unfortunately Molly made it impossible for him to listen to the conversation by dragging him out of the room and into his own.

Greg suddenly stood very still. He was alone, in a room, with Mycroft Holmes. The boy who, despite his cold personality and weird behavior, could turn him into a hot ball of nerves in a matter of seconds and this occurred regularly in Latin although most of the time he had managed to cover it up pretty well. He could tell from Mycroft’s previous statement that he thought that Greg only spoke to him to be polite because their parents were friends. He couldn’t be more wrong even if he tried. Mycroft was intimidating, well at least that how he felt in Latin. He wasn’t used to being in the presence of someone who thought that they were smarter or better then he was and this unnerved him. He was used to people watching him in awe as he scored goal after goal in football matches or managed to ace his GCSE’s unlike the rest of the football team. But Mycroft was not like the others. He was different and this intrigued him.

“So… you have a boyfriend.” Mycroft asked, not minding at all that that was most probably the case, he just needed to start a conversation with him. He knew Greg Lestrade could get whoever he set his eyes on so he knew that he didn’t have to worry about flirting and what not something that he had only recently become comfortable with doing.

“Yeah… we’ve been dating for a few months now. He doesn’t go to our school so I don’t think you will know of him.”

“Cool…” Mycroft muttered feeling the tension rising in the room as each second past. Why hadn’t he stopped Sherlock from leaving him alone in a room with Greg Lestrade, the big football sensation? The boy wasn’t particularly horrible like some at his friends from the football team but he didn’t particularly like him enough to make small talk. Mycroft looked down at the floor wondering whether he should ask him if he wants a drink or food or something but he let the thought slip out of his mind when he saw Greg looking at him, and then smiled.

“So… I also came round here to talk about Latin I just didn’t want to just turn up and be like ‘hey we rarely talk but I need your help’.” Greg joked hoping to bring a smile to the depressed face that was looking at him. Yes. Result. Mycroft smiled a nice but brief smile. “I just don’t really… get Latin this year. Before it was ok that’s why I chose it as one of my options but this year… I think that it’s really crappy and annoying.”

“Mmm… so what do you want me to do for you?”

“Well I was wondering if you could tutor me or something. I just really need the help. If I don’t get a good grade then my dad will murder me and you’re the best person in our class at Latin so I thought that you would might consider helping me out. It helps that we know each other as well but not well enough to get mocked about not being comfortable with the subject.”

“Yes. Of course. My parents would go mental if I reclined your proposal so I suppose I have to. When do you have football practice?” Mycroft asked getting straight to the object in question.

“Everyday before school I have fitness training, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have circuits afterschool and Sunday I have matches.”

“Ok well… I suppose we could do Tuesday’s and Thursday’s afterschool for a few hours at a time depending on what you want to do in each session?”

“Yeah that sounds cool. Thanks. Are you sure you are ok with this?”

“Yes, of course. It’s not too much hassle. It’s a good way for me to revise as well which is always a good thing.”

“Thanks again. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”

“urmmmm… its ok. Well I will see you on Tuesday, afterschool. We can meet outside the school gates and we can go back to my place or yours. What ever you want.”

“Yeah sounds good I was just wondering, as well, if you could help me with this week’s homework while I am here? Oh, I nearly forgot. My parents sent these round.” Greg said passing the bag over to Mycroft, “My parents have a tendency to over shop and we therefore have loads of spare food left over just sitting in the store cupboard. So my parents thought you might like some of it to cheer you up.”

“Thanks. That’s nice of them. Can you thank them on my behalf please? Its nice to know some cares.” Mycroft muttered quickly hiding the bags in his walk in wardrobe before his parents or the nanny saw them. “Yes of course. We can eat some of the food in these bags too because this is way too much for one person to eat

“Yeah sounds great!” Greg said feeling slightly more relaxed in Mycroft’s company. He got out his Latin books and started to explain what he didn’t understand.

Molly and Greg left the Holmes estate at 10 o’clock that night after being fed up by Mrs. Van Hooven, talking about Latin homework and other hobbies other than football and finally watching a movie in which Sherlock and Mycroft, trying not to ruin the ending of the film for the others because they had only just realized that that was rude, wrote down the ending of the story before it had began and later revealing the correct answer once the movie had finished.

After that day, Greg was regularly at the Holmes estate firstly just for the allocated Latin sessions but then he started to come over whenever he was free. After a month or so it became normal for his parents to just assume that Greg was round Mycroft’s when he was not at home or at football practice. At first they only studied Latin together and texted each other when Greg became extremely stuck on a particular set of homework tasks but after a few weeks, they started just hanging out together and doing other subjects which they had been given homework for. 

One time Greg even invited Mycroft to watch a football match with him because most of his normal football buddies were busy with girlfriends or homework. At first Mycroft refused but after a lot of persuasion, Mycroft went with Greg, not particularly enjoying the game but feeling at ease in Greg’s company because after all these months of “hanging out” he had managed to get into an easy friendship with the boy, much like the one he had with Amelia which had now been going strong for 15 years.

Amelia even managed to notice that Mycroft was preoccupied most of the time and never seemed to have time to hang out with her but she didn’t mind at all even if she didn’t know who the special person that was taking up so much of his time was. After all the tension that had been in the air at the Holmes manor recently, Mycroft deserved a break and really didn’t need his best friend having a go at him because he had another friend. When Mycroft when off to hang out with Greg after school she just went over to one of her female friend’s house.

However Sherlock did not like Mycroft spending all his time with Greg. Although he would never admit it, Sherlock loved it when his brother would interfere in one of his experiments that he was conducting with either Harry or Molly, telling him that it was so simple and that he should make it harder. But his brother seemed much happier than he was after ‘the shouting incident’ so he kept his mouth shut. He just wanted his brother to be happy and if Greg did this then he had to just cope with it.


	5. The Attempted Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problems ahead for Mycroft....

The door bell rang. It kept ringing. Over and over again.

"Can someone get the bloody door!" Mycroft shouted.

The bell stopped ringing so Mycroft assumed that someone had answered the door. It was probably just Molly. Or Greg. But he had been busy recently so that was unlikely.

"Oi, you." Mycroft felt a finger poke his ribs as he started to come out of his mind palace, "What's wrong with you at the moment Mycroft? You seem… sad. What wrong? Tell me or I will start hitting you with your blasted umbrella and if that doesn't work then I will steal it and hold it captive until you tell me what's wrong!" Amelia announced grabbing the umbrella ready for a fight.

"I am fine Amelia. Perfectly fine. Nothing for you to worry about. Can you please put my umbrella down."

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because you are lying to me! Something is wrong. You seem… preoccupied!"

"I don't know what you are talking about?"

"I have known you for 15 years now Mycroft Holmes. I know when you are lying to me. Is it something about Greg Lestrade? You two have been getting very close recently but I haven't seen you two going home together for the past few days?"

"Its nothing about… Gregory. The reason why we have not been going home together for a week and two days now is because he has to spend time with his boyfriend. He has been spending so much time revising with me and playing football that his boyfriend has started to get annoyed, I don't really know why but then again, I don't really understand love."

"So it is about him then! You two aren't hanging out so that makes you sad. What makes it worst is that he is spending time with his boyfriend and not you. Bloody hell Mycroft! You fancy him don't you!?" Amelia hissed, letting the words fall out of her mind as soon as thought of them forcing them to come out in a weird manner.

"Don't be absurd Amelia. We have been speaking for merely five minutes and you come to the conclusion that I have some kind of emotional attachment towards this… boy."

"Mycroft, I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. Even when we were younger we didn't need to talk to one another to understand when something was wrong. This is exactly the same situation as then. We haven't even spoken properly for the past few days and I know something is up. Just tell me Mycroft. Maybe I can help? Remember that I was the one who helped you with the whole gay situation."

"Yes and thanks for that. You introduced me to a guy who I started a relationship with and then ended up going a little bit too far with him in my own house. Not the best way to tell your parents that you are bisexual."

Suddenly a mass of black curly hair appeared at the doorway and started to enter the room

"Amelia…. I thought I heard your voice." The younger boy said to their guest.

"Nice to see you too Lock. Good to know that you are eye wigging into our conversations as always."

"Don't call me Lock. I am not 5 anymore." Sherlock stated to the girl who was currently sitting at the end of Mycroft's bed while Mycroft at his desk on his Macbook Pro. "Now come on. Tell me more about Mycroft's crush. I cant begin to understand why he likes Gregory Lestrade but I suppose that is rather good looking according to the many girls who want to date him but for obvious reasons that will never happen. Also he is built rather… sturdily so biological it makes sense that your body would react to him of all people in that way."

"SHERLOCK!" Mycroft shouted

"Calm down Mycroft. You are going to give yourself a heart attack if you carry on getting your pants in a twist. Although Sherlock, I must say that that was rather insensitive of you. Its rude to listen in on people's private conversations and then announce why Mycroft obviously likes Greg.." Amelia explained.

"Yes… well I don't do sensitive. Its not in my nature. Just like its not in my brother's nature to keep away from very attractive football players."

"Sherlock if you don't shut up in a minute, you will find yourself without a bed or any other belonging for a very long time." Mycroft harshly muttered.

"Mycroft don't be so harsh. Even if that was a little bit… weird, he was speaking the truth. You obviously like this boy."

"no I don't."

"yes you do."

"I do not"

"Yes you do."

"And how do you know all this information about how I am feeling? You are not in my mind, luckily."

"Because you are acting like a hormone-ridden teenage girl and that's one thing I can totally understand. You are upset when you can't hang out with him. You don't like it when he sits at a different table to you at lunch. You blushed a very deep pale of red for someone with such a pale complection when we said that you fancied him and you do whatever he tells you to do."

They all sat there in silence staring at one another for a few minutes before Mycroft sighed. It was small and brief but they all heard it. It was the sign of defeat. They continued to sit in such a way for about 20 minutes.

"You need to tell him how you feel!"

"I don't even know how I feel… well not totally. I need to think about it see what my feeling are towards Gregory before I do anything."

"Just tell him Mycroft or I will." Sherlock commented.

"Sherlock if you dare interfere in this matter I will kill you. He cannot know."

"mmmm we'll see about that." and Sherlock got up and left his brother in his room.

"I hope you know how to control him because he has his experiment face on."

"This is war." Mycroft stated.

Over the next few weeks Sherlock was out of control. Every moment that Mycroft and Greg were at Holmes Manor, Sherlock always walked into their room and started off his question with "Greg, did you know that Mycroft…" and this was starting to get on Mycroft's nerves.

Sherlock had, once, even managed to get a note to Greg in the middle of Latin. The moment Mycroft saw the curly writing that belonged to his brother, he snatched the note out of Greg's hands and ripped it up before Greg could even take a look at the note. Greg was very shocked by Mycroft's behaviour and demanded to know why he had done that. Mycroft, of course, had a very intelligent response to this question and he managed to get away with the strange behaviour.

Amelia kept asking Mycroft everyday whether he had spoken to Greg about the situation but every time, Mycroft just said that he was dealing with it and it would be sorted out quicker if people didn't keep asking him about it.

The relationship between Mycroft and Sherlock was becoming very strained 3 weeks after Sherlock realised that Mycroft had feelings for Greg. But the situation reached new heights one Tuesday afternoon.

Mycroft had found out that Tuesday afternoon that Greg needed to come round to his house because he had to sort out his Latin coursework out before the match that was to start at 5 o clock that evening otherwise he would not be able to play in the game. This was the first time that this had happened in 3 weeks. So when they got out of school at 3 o clock they headed straight for Holmes Manor. They went right up to Mycroft's bedroom when they got in and started to unpack all their Latin books out across the floor.

"Why didn't you start your coursework earlier? It was set three weeks ago and I handed mine in two weeks ago. It wasn't that hard but it's going to take forever to do because you haven't even started!"

"I know. I know. You don't need to tell me something that I already know. My work just started to build up so I just left this until the last moment thinking that I would be able to complete it at a later date due to the extended deadline but I forgot and… got caught up with other thing."

Mycroft just nodded as he started to sort through all the Latin literature books that Greg had managed to loan from the library. He saw Greg's homework diary and flicked it open to the right week.

"Gregory, you do realised that you haven't done most of this week's homework?"

"Yes."

"Can I ask you why you haven't done any of it?"

"Tom."

When that little name was spoken, Mycroft tensed. He didn't really know what to say in reply to Greg.

"He's got all… protective. Its really weird. He wants to spend every single second with me. He doesn't want me to do any work when he comes round just… Kiss. Him."

Mycroft was not an expert in matters of the heart so he was rather uncomfortable with the situation so he started to talk about poetry choices and themes. Greg seemed to be fine with the change that their conversation took as he started to write down some of his ideas on a blank piece of paper.

At half 4 they finished the coursework. It was a relief for both of them. Greg seemed so happy with himself once he had done and that just made Mycroft smile. It was nice to see him happy. They started to pack all of their things back into their bags and quickly cleared up the mess they had made.

"Do you mind if I get changed? It's just… it will be quicker to get changed here now than when I get school." Greg asked, twiddling the corner of his school shirt between his fingers.

"Of course. I will just be in Sherlock's room if you need anything." Mycroft replied leaving his room so that Greg could get changed. 5 minutes later Mycroft heard Greg call for him so he returned to his room. He did not expect to find Greg standing in his room with only his shorts, football boots, shin pads and socks on. He had no top on. Mycroft could help but stare. Not for long but long enough for Greg to realise what he was doing.

"I was just wondering if you would like to come and watch the match. I totally understand if you don't want to. Football totally isn't your things but… it would be nice to see you there." Greg muttered catching Mycroft's gaze for a second before looking down at his football shirt that was held between his hands.

"Uhm… I don't know. I have some work to do." Mycroft pointed out. Greg was disappointed. Over the last few weeks, things had been awkward between the pair but Greg had just ignored it until that moment. He hoped that going out for dinner make sort things out.

"That's fine. Totally fine I just thought … we haven't spent that much time together recently and I suppose it would be nice to go out after the match and get something to eat. We haven't done that in a month or so."

"Oh well…. Maybe the work can wait one night. I don't think it will do any harm. Anyway I heard that there might be scouts in the crowd watching and I can't miss watching the best game of the season, can I? It would make me drop below the science geeks on the school social hierarchy." Greg chuckled.

"And since when have you cared about the school social hierarchy?" Greg asked, slightly extatic over the fact that they seemed to be friends again even if their friendship had not official been stopped in the first place.

"Since you decided to associate yourself with me outside of school." Mycroft muttered, "Can you please put your shirt on. Its rather distracting and not in a good way. The way your belly hangs over your shorts is causing blindness in both my eyes"

"Haha very funny. Was that an attempt at a joke, Mycroft Holmes. Come on. Are you ready then?" Greg asked

"Well no. I might need to change out of my school uniform. Its ok. I will just change my shirt." Mycroft moved towards his wardrobe selecting his best shirt to wear before starting to unbutton his shirt but quickly realising that he had an unwelcome guest in his room. "Are you just going to sit there and watch me get changed like a pervert or are you going to get out of my room?" He asked politely

"No. You've seen my upper body. It's only fair that I see yours! …..Its obvious that you don't do much sport by the look on your face." Greg paused for a second watching Mycroft's cheeks turn slightly red, "That sounded weird didn't it? I just meant that I have seen plenty of guys getting dressed because its what you have to do after football practice. You getting changed in front of me isn't going to be that much different. Plus you owe me for seeing me half naked."

Fuck Mycroft thought. Why does he have to watch me get changed!

"You called for me. I thought it was ok for me to come into my own room but fine." He slowly undid the rest of the buttons of his shirt and let it fall off his shoulders and onto his bedroom floor. He kicked it into the corner of the room for the cleaner to pick up and put his shirt on, quickly doing the buttons up. He didn't like being this exposed in front of someone. "Blazer or Jacket?" Mycroft asked holding up the two items of clothing.

"Leather jacket although I am very surprised that you actually own a leather jacket, didn't think it was you style." Mycroft put the jacket on, put his hands through his hair and walked out of his room.

Mycroft didn't even realised he was flirting with Gregory before the words came tumbling of his mouth "I do like to shock people Gregory, especially you. Maybe I will be able to shock you even more before the night is out."

They were walking down the road when they saw him, well when Greg saw him. A man was walking towards them before stopping right in front of Greg. He started to shout at him, like he was very angry. Words came out of his mouth that Mycroft hadn't even heard before but he knew they were bad. Very bad.

But Greg just shouted back. It was obvious from the way that Greg spoke to him and how he tried to grab hold of this hand that this was his boyfriend. Mycroft caught some of the conversation although at this stage he had began to walk away from the couple so that he could give them a bit of privacy. His name was mentioned at least 5 times in their conversation but he was sure that it was probably mentioned more than that. But that was when Tom hit Greg and Mycroft found himself beside Greg within the blink of an eye.

"Fuck off before I call the police." Mycroft screamed in Tom's face before he even had a chance to hit Greg again. Luckily, Tom just walked away. When Mycroft turned around he saw Greg holding onto his face which had blood dipping down it. He removed Greg's hands from his face and carefully inspected his face. He grabbed Greg's hand and made it grip onto the bridge of his nose, stemming the blood flow. Then he started to walk down the road and Greg followed him but Mycroft went into the a shop before Greg could stop him. When Mycroft returned he was carrying a packet of tissues, a bottle of ice tea and some chocolate.

"Come here. I need to clear you up a bit." Mycroft said, pulling Greg closer towards him. He gently dabbed the blood from his face and removed Greg hand from his nose again. "It looks broken. I should take you to hospital to get it x rayed."

"No. no. I will be fine. I just need to clean myself up a bit. I can't miss the match." Greg said adamantly grabbing another tissue and attempting to wipe more of the blood off his face.

"I knew you would say that. You are in shock though. You are shacking pretty badly." Mycroft mentioned, motioning for Greg to sit down on a brick wall that was outside the shop. "Look drink this, it might make you feel better. I know its not tea but it's the nearest thing I could find." Greg smiled and then began to laugh at the thought of Mycroft actually looking for a tea pot in a small newsagents.. He took the bottle and took a few generous gulps of the cool liquid. It instantly made him feel better but he was still slightly embarrassed by what had just happened. "Eat some of this." Mycroft shoved a square of chocolate into his mouth.

"I am capable of feeding myself" Greg muttered sucking the chocolate square. "You should drink some of this. Not for the same reason that I did but I don't want my nurse fainting on me!"

Mycroft took the bottle and took a quick swig of the ice tea before popping a square of chocolate into his mouth. "Your shirt is ruined!" Mycroft stated ignoring the nurse comment.

"Yeah I know. Its fine. I will change it when I get to school. There's probably a spare one hanging around the changing room somewhere." They started to carry on their journey towards school in silence. Greg started to feel the embarrassment take over from the pain in his face. He didn't like the fact that he didn't defend himself, especially in front of Mycroft and that Mycroft had to hear his boyfriend slag him off.

"I'm sorry about Tom. You shouldn't have had to hear all that. Some of the things he said were just harsh."

"Its ok . You don't have to explain yourself. I didn't hear most of the stuff he said anyway so… "

"Yes. Yes I do. And yes, I know you hear what he said. He was shouting it so loudly that I think half of London could hear what he was saying. What he said wasn't true. None of it. He was just jealous of how much time I spent with you and not him. I don't even know why…"

"Just stop Greg. I really don't care about what that idiot said. I just want to make sure that you get to the match on time so that you can hand your Latin coursework in and then after you have played, I want to make sure you get home ok."

"Thanks, Mycroft."

When they got to school, Mycroft headed off to hand Greg's Latin coursework in while Greg got changed into a new football shirt. His coach practically had a heart attack when he saw Greg's face but he needed Greg to play because they needed to win this match especially in front of the all the scouts.

Mycroft managed to get to the sports field and found Amelia sitting next to Sherlock just as the players were going onto the field. When Greg came out he was looking around the field trying to find Mycroft. He spotted him just as kick off started and gave him a smile that made Mycroft's heart physically melt like the chocolate that he had eaten earlier. Bloody hell Mycroft thought. Amelia and Sherlock are right. I totally fancy him even if the idea of it makes me want to be sick.

By half time, St. Edwards had scored 4 goals (all thanks to Gregory) where as, St. George's had scored 1 goal (but that goal had only just slipped through the goalies fingers and into the goal). All of the players went over to, what Mycroft and Sherlock had found out was called the subs bench, and each had something to drink.

"So are you and George going out then?" Sherlock questioned.

"Its Greg and no."

"You never call him Greg, its always Gregory. What's changed?" Amelia asked.

"Nothing. Nothing has happened. Can you just leave it." Mycroft answered giving Amelia such an evil look.

"No I am not just going to leave it when my best friend is acting so love struck and he can't even admit it to himself let alone to the person he likes. You seriously need to tell him how you feel because over time it will become harder and harder to hide your feelings."

"I know. I just don't know how to. I am not good at all this… emotional stuff. I don't even know that what I am feeling is love."

"Does it feel like how you felt with Mitchell?"

"Not really. It feels similar but stronger"

"Well then you love him. You need to tell him now."

"no."

"why not?"

"Because I don't want to ruin our friendship and the idea of me.. Loving him makes me want to be sick."

"Oh for goodness sake Mycroft! Just tell him how you feel as soon as this match has finished and you will be looking after your biological urges by 10 o clock." Sherlock muttered rolling his eyes at his brother

"Sherlock that was uncalled for." Amelia said pinching Sherlock in the back when he wasn't looking.

At the end of the match the score was 8:2 but Mycroft stopped paying attention. Mycroft made note of every move that Greg made and as every second went by he became more and more nervous. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't.

So when Greg came up to he at the end of the match, much to the disappointment of his coach, the cheerleaders and the scouts, Mycroft just turned towards Amelia and shook his head. "I cant do it. I just cant. It's like admitting defeat. You what I believe about sentiment and all that. I just can't ."

"Gregory, did you know that Mycroft really likes you. Not just in a friendly way as in a 'I want to shove my tongue down your throat' way." Sherlock started as Greg approached them.

"Sherlock shut up, right now." Mycroft insisted grabbing his brother's arm and pulling him backwards.

However Sherlock managed to free himself from Mycroft's grasp and continued, "I don't even understand why it is such a big issue for him. I thought that his feeling would be pretty obvious after he looked through your Facebook photos and ended up getting an erection. As I remember he masturbated for 4 minutes 3 seconds before climaxing shouting your name."

"Fucking hell Sherlock. Please shut up, you arsehole. How the hell do you even know all that stuff." Mycroft shouted at his brother.

"I put a camera in your room a few months ago. I can give you photographic evidence if you really want Lestrade. Its become very interesting the past few months. Brother dear, have gone from never masturbating to doing it pretty much everyday."

Mycroft punched Sherlock. He punched him and then it turned into a full blown fight. Mycroft managed to get a few good punches in before Sherlock pinned him to the floor with his legs hooked around his brother's waist tightly and returned his punches but with a lot more force.

"Sherlock get off him" Both Amelia and Greg shouted trying to pull Sherlock off his brother. They did manage to do this but only with the help of one of the parents who looked like Mike Tyson. The father separated the boys and made sure that they were as far away from each other as possible and made sure that their injuries were ok.

Sherlock had managed to only sustain a split lip and some bruising to his ribs but Mycroft had come off much worst. He had a split lip, a black eye, some red friction burns on his wrists and some bruising on his hips. He looked a right mess when Greg came over to him with the packet of tissues that he had used to stop the bleeding from his nose and a bottle of water.

"You shouldn't look too upset. At least you punched him back! Here. Take this. You need to stop the…."

"Just leave me alone. I am fine."

"you are not fine. You look like you…"

"Gregory can you please. Leave. Me. Alone."

"No…"

"Hi are you number 5, Gregory Lestrade." A tall man who was carrying a clipboard asked Greg.

"Yes, just Greg."

"Hi, I am Mr. Arthur Temple and I am a scout for Arsenal Football Club. We have heard a lot about you and I was sent down here to make sure that you are as good as they all said you was." The man started to say. Greg looked at Mycroft who was now standing behind him. He looked like he was in a bad way. Both mentally and physically.

"Its fine. I am just going to find Sherlock and drag him home."

"Are you sure? I think I should walk with you. You're in a bad way and you promised me dinner."

"Nothing that I haven't had to deal with before. Sherlock and I used to fight like this when we were younger but eventually he grew out of it. And with regards to the dinner, I really don't think its appropriate especially after everything that has happened."

"As long as you are sure you're ok." Greg reached out to grab his hand but quickly refrained from doing so, replacing his hand in his shorts again. He saw the awkward look that appeared on Mycroft's face and decided to take to much interest in the floor.

Mycroft nodded once before turning around to find Sherlock.


	6. The Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baron and Baroness hooper come over to the Holmes Estate with a proposition...

After Sherlock revealed his wanking habits to the rest of the school, Mycroft avoided as many public situations around school as possible. He tried not to go to lunch and only did so when most people had finished lunch so that they whispers were at a minimum. He spent most of his time in the senior library (the library in which they had to be silent) and only went to classes when the bell had rung. The only time that he couldn't avoid people was in class and especially in Latin when he had to sit next to Greg. Every lesson Greg tried to talk to him but he just ignored him as if he wasn't even there.

Of course doing all these things annoyed Mycroft but anything was better than listening to the rumours that spread around the school. No one had heard the full conversation that took place on the field after the match but some people had managed to catch some of the gossip and spread it around school. And this gossip spread like wildfire. At first it was just little piece of gossip such as "Mycroft is a faggot" but then it started to become quite extreme. However Amelia was pretty good at keeping most of the rumours to a minimum or spreading a new one around about someone else.

His whole life was a complete mess. He couldn't stand being the in the same room as Sherlock for more than 5 minutes without feeling the urge to kick him in the balls as revenge for the stunt at the football match 2 weeks ago. Sherlock had apologised many times for what he did but Amelia must have forced him to do so because that was not normal 'Sherlock' behaviour so he therefore would not accept the apology.

Sherlock however was in quite the opposite position to what his brother was in. Molly and Harry came over to the estate every morning so that they could all walk to school together and most of the time came over after school as well. Sherlock loved the fact that for the first time in his life he had friend who were actually interested in him and not just hanging out with him because of who his father was.

From Mycroft's bedroom he could often hear the children playing and this annoyed him. But the fact that it was Greg's half sister that was often the one doing the laughing annoyed him even more. He couldn't seem to get away from the boy. He had tried to bribe the teacher into letting him sit next to someone else but his Latin teacher was especially strict and was adamant that he should try to get on with Greg. Mycroft thought that that would never happen after the recent events. To him it was so obvious that Greg didn't want anything to do with him, especially after Amelia kicked him in the balls in the middle of the corridor when he was laughing at a joke that one of his mates made about him.

One day, 3 months after the football incident, when Molly, Harry and Sherlock were doing some sort of experiment with the garden hose, the door bell rang.

The bell rang again.

When it rang for the third time Mycroft went to answer it after remembering that Mrs. Van Der Hooven would not be looking after them today as his parents were home. He hurried down he stairs as fast as he could, hoping that the people at the door would be patient because it was a very long distance from his room to the door.

Baron and Baroness Hooper were standing outside with who only but Gregory Lestrade, the boy he had been trying to avoid for months. Of course he invited them in because he had learnt that people who are high on his parents friends list should not be left on the doorstep because that was apparently 'rude' and his parents would end up making a big deal of such a small matter.

This was like one of his nightmares. The rumours had only just disappeared thanks to Laura Smith who had recently got pregnant and was now the new source of gossip around school, and luckily that meant that he was able to get on with his life. But Gregory turning up at his door did not help matters.

After he let the visitors into their hall, with them telling him how beautiful the house was even though they had come here before, he led them towards their formal reception room. His parents must have heard the door bell ring and heard that Mycroft answered it because they were already coming down the stairs.

"Baron Hooper. Baroness Hooper. Its so nice to see you." Mrs Holmes said briefly embracing Baroness Hooper and kissing her on either cheek before doing the same to Baron Hooper. Mr Holmes shook Baron Hooper's hand briefly and kissed Baroness Hopper's cheeks just like his wife had.

"Has Mycroft offered you a drink yet?" Mrs Holmes asked.

"No, not yet but its ok. We have only just come through the door."

"What would you like? We have tea, coffee, water, milk or something stronger, even if it is only 11 o clock." Mycroft said mumbling the last comment.

"Thank you Mycroft I wouldn't mind a nice tea, do you have any camomile? Baroness Hooper asked.

"yes we do."

"I would love a coffee." Baron Hooper stated smiling at Mycroft .

"I'm ok thanks." Greg muttered from where he was standing.

"Why don't you sit down and Mycroft can bring the drinks in once they are ready." Mr Holmes said pointing towards a large sofa that stood in the middle of the living room.

Mycroft left the room and got himself busy with preparing the drinks. After a few minutes the kettle was boiled and the drinks had been made using their best cups and saucers. He carefully carried the drinks through to the living room making sure that he didn't spill the drinks as did so. As he placed them on the coffee table, he caught Greg staring at him more specifically his arse and he practically fell into the coffee table due to the shock. However he quickly walked over to 'his' chair trying to calm his breathing down and get rid of the shocked look that would not disappear from his face. He pulled his feet up onto the chair and moved them over the arm of the chair. He sat in that position while he went to his mind palace ignoring the conversation that was taking place in front of him.

While Mycroft was in his mind palace, Sherlock, Molly and Harry entered the sitting room carrying a fishing net and a Tupperware box of frog. Mrs Holmes explained to them that although she thought they would be great to use in an experiment, she really didn't want them in the house. Sherlock took them back outside and let them go into the pond. The conversation then turned to Greg's recent footballing success and everyone was very excited about the idea of Greg being trained by some of Arsenal's best coaches.

"Mycroft! Mycroft! Get your feet off the chair. Sit properly. Mycroft are you even listening to me." Mrs. Holmes commanded. Mycroft came out of his mind palace quickly and huffed as he did what he mother said.

"What about college or university?" Mr Holmes asked.

"They said that he should be able to go to college or university as well but it would be better if he just focused on the football training." Mycroft noticed a slight look of anger on Greg's face but it immediately vanished so Mycroft ignored it. Mycroft averted his gaze over to Gregory again, for a second, looking back at his lap once he had done so. He was staring back. Greg was staring at him! Again!

The two women started to talk amongst themselves about local gossip and work while the men talked about politics and other important subjects. The children just sat on the floor talking amongst themselves.

Mycroft has managed to zone out from both of the conversation but he was drawn back to the room again when he heard his father speaking about Greg. "I forgot to ask you the other day but I was just wondering why Greg had a broken nose a few months back? It looked pretty serious. I just though that it might be a football injury but the angle of the break shows that someone must have punched him." Mr Holmes asked Greg's father showing the deductions skills that he must have inherited to his sons.

"At the football match some boys got into an argument and Greg tried to split them up. He ended up getting punched in the nose and when he went to the hospital the next day we found out it was broken although I am not sure how you knew about the angle of the break or even that it was broken."

"The way his nose dents in on the right side of the bone in his nose, shows that he must have been hit by a right handed person. The serious nature of the break as shown by the length of time that it has taken to heal means that it must have been an impact blow and that doesn't really happen much in football."

"Wow. That's good. Amazing actually."

"Dear, come on. Stop gossiping. We need to tell them about the thing cus we need to be back soon to meet the gardener." Baroness Hooper said to her husband.

"Well we just came to over to tell you about a proposition which we thought you would be interested in." Baron Hooper added "Every year at Christmas time we go on a family vacation to our holiday home in America. This year we are planning to go as usual but we were wondering that because Molly and Sherlock have grown very attached to one another, whether your family would like to come with us also?"

"Well it sounds like a great idea. I will have to know a bit more about it before I make a final decision but it sounds like it would be a good way for the Children to have some fun." Mr Holmes stated.

"Well we were planning on going on 16th December and arriving back on the 6th. The holiday home is in a very nice place in Florida. It has plenty of rooms for both families... Oh.. I forgot to mention that Molly's tutor, Mrs. Watson and her family will be joining is as well. We thought that it would be a great way for Molly to keep up with her studies and it also gives Molly another friend to play with." Mr Hooper said smiling at Harry who was sat next to Molly on the floor, "You might have the same problems with your boys as we do with Molly and Greg. They just seem to get jealous of each other really easily. And as Molly is bringing two friends, Sherlock and Harry but Greg is only bringing John it only made the decision easier because then Greg has another friend to bring," baron Hooper said nodding in Mycroft's direction.

"What! You think me and him are... Friends." Mycroft stuttered

"We'll you two do hang out a lot don't you? Doing homework and things that kids do for fun these days?" Baron Hooper asked

"Dad, you're embarrassing me. Just leave it." Greg muttered, poking his father's arm.

Ignoring Greg's comment Mycroft replies, "Yes we did."

"Did?... Yes I did hear that you two had a little fight." Mycroft nods wishing things were only that simple.

"Dad, please just shut up."

"Don't speak to your father that way Gregory. It's not very respectful." Baroness Hooper added.

"Well I hope that you too can make up soon otherwise you will be ruining a good opportunity for the kids to have a bit of fun in the sun." Baron Hooper exclaimed. Greg just sighed and looked at his lap again.

"I think that the boys will be able to get over their differences, at least for 3 weeks." My Holmes explained. "I think that it sounds like a really good idea. Gives us adults the time to have a good rest and the woman can have a good catch up. The children will have some good memories of the holiday as well. I hear that America has many attraction and other things for children to do so that will be able to keep them entertained."

"Well that's all sorted then! I can give you further details closer to the time." Baroness Hooper said as Molly and Harry started to dance around the room.

This was when Mycroft left the room. He didn't want to go. He did not need to spend 3 weeks in Gregory's company after Sherlock had made him look like a complete prick.

2 months later

"Mycroft and Greg! You two please try and work together! I don't care if Mycroft doesn't want to. For you to get a good grade for Latin at the end of this year you need to perform a piece of Latin literature. Now get on before I have to give the both of you a detention."

"Come on Mycroft. You know I can't afford to get a detention! its the height of the football season. And you know that I can't get a bad grade in Latin."

"I really don't give a stuff Gregory."

"Can you please not call me Gregory. My friends call me Greg so I expect you to as well. Not even the teachers call me Gregory, for goodness sake!"

"So you think we are mates even after our massive fight?"

"I didn't know what to tell my parents when I am suddenly doing work at home instead of at your house... So I told them that we argued."

"Why did you lie to them?"

"I just told you for fuck sake! I think I should be the one asking the questions! Since the football match you haven't even spoken to me once. Its like your ignoring me."

"What am I suppose to say. 'I'm sorry my brother is such a prick that he decided to put a camera in my room. I am sorry that he decided to tell you about my masturbation sessions and that has made the atmosphere between the two of us awkward.' There isn't really much I can say to you without it making things seem worst."

"So I am assuming that what he said was correct? And with regards to the awkward atmosphere between us, I didn't want it to awkward you did that all by yourself. I was willing to go to dinner with you so that we talk about it. But you didn't want to come. I would have thought that the Mycroft Holmes I know would at least explain what the hell is going on that brain of his and not ignore his best mate just because of what his brother said."

Greg was met with silence after his little hushed outburst. "Are you going to explain yourself then?"

"No. Anyway its my turn to ask questions. Why did you tell your father that you broke your nose trying to separate two boys fighting the in the crowd at the football match."

"I thought that would be obvious for Mycroft Holmes, the super genius!" Greg stated sarcastically but he was met with Mycroft's blank face, "Because I didn't want my father to think I was weak."

"And why would that be? You didn't hit Tom because you still loved him, you still love him and no matter what he does to you, you will still be there for him. Maybe you should just tell your father that."

"You are such an arrogant prick, Mycroft Holmes. You seriously need to get more people skills. Your deductions maybe accurate when it comes to trivial things but when it comes to people's emotions you can't even begin to see what is so obvious, let alone understand what those feelings mean."

"So you know about emotions then all of a sudden? You couldn't even begin to understand the things that I am feeling so why should I follow your hypocritical advice."

"Because then you might understand why I have been trying so hard to talk to you for the past few weeks."

"So you are asking me to try and understand what a football obsessed, 17 year old boy is thinking about. Well its very obvious. You think you can get anyone you want being such a big celebrity that you are around school but when someone with some brains becomes interested in you, you don't know what to do so you simply try to talk to them and ask them out to dinner. Cant you see that that would make the situation even worst. Its obvious that the best thing to do is stay away from each other and never talk again. Well that's where I can totally understand why you are failing Latin. Because you are too thick to even pass a basic Latin course that I managed to complete when I was half your age."

"Don't you ever treat anyone with respect? Do you ever care about what other people are feeling or does everything that comes into your mind have to be about yourself."

"Oh, because you deserve respect do you? Of course 'Mr. Football celebrity of the school' must be treated with the up-most of respect by the lowly students of the school. Maybe you need to look at yourself before you start giving advice out to others."

"You're such an arsehole Mycroft. I feel like I have the emotional range of an elephant compared to you. How can you simply ignore these feelings? I know I can't. Even when we touch for the briefest of seconds its like I am drowning in… lust." Without thinking, Greg put his hand on Mycroft's hand and squeezed it as Mycroft tried to pull his hand away.

"Greg, I can't do this. Please, just let go of my hand."

"Maybe I don't want to."

"Well you need to. You are totally right about everything. I think the right phrase is 'that I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.' I can't love. I will never be able to. I can't give you what you deserve so just let go of my hand."

"This doesn't make sense. You always read in books that once someone tells you that they have feelings for them, everything just falls into place. Why can't you just except that we both want this?"

"Because I am incapable of being in a… relationship."

"You were in a relationship with that guy. The one who your parents caught you with."

Mycroft winced at the memory, "And look were that got me." He muttered, a sad look filling his face as he looked into Gregory's eyes. Gregory released his hand only slightly but enough for him to free his hand from the prison like cage of his hand.

Mycroft stood up as if none of that had just happened , right as the bell went and swept out of the room.


	7. The Holiday- Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The American holiday begins...

The day had finally arrived. The day which everyone was looking forward to (everyone except for Mycroft, but he never looked forward to anything so he didn't count.) The day that Sherlock had been counting down to for 3 months. The Christmas holidays.  
Sherlock did not believe in the notion of a God so he didn't really see the point in celebrating his Son's birthday and therefore he never celebrated it like normal people did but this year was an exception to the rule and for once he would attempt to enjoy himself. This holiday he would be able to spend some time with his friends (although he now has friends, he would say that he only has 3 even if Molly surrounds them with her friends everyday and called them 'their friends'!)

Sherlock, Mycroft, John, Harry, Molly, Greg and the Watson twins had managed to get the last (half) day of school off, much to their delight, because their flight was at 9 o' clock that morning and going into school would mean that they would miss their flight. Sherlock and Molly once they had got home from the day before, they went straight to Molly's house to pack some science magazines into her case. They then spent the rest of the evening conducting experiments on insects in the back garden but Sherlock had to go home earlier then usual because his parents wanted him in bed earlier than usual due to their early awakening (even if they knew that he wouldn't actually get much sleep).

Although Mr and Mrs Holmes had told Sherlock to pack his bag at least the night before, Sherlock had managed to delete this fact from his brain and was therefore left to pack three weeks worth of clothes at 3 o' clock in the morning. For most people this would not physically be possible but for a Holmes, this was child's play.

An hour later, when everyone's alarms went off, Sherlock was still packing but luckily he only had a few things to pack. After his parents had shouted at him from downstairs to have a shower and get ready, Sherlock followed his parents advise and had a shower. He quickly got dressed in his normal attire (black trousers, white shirt, black school shoes and long black coat) but was sent back to his room to put on some 'normal clothes'.

When he returned all members of the Holmes family were sitting around the table eating a light breakfast and engaging in polite conversation. Three suitcases were sat in the corner of the room and both his parents had a smaller bag which obviously carried their work laptops and their smartphones.

"Hello Sherlock. How are you this morning?" His mother asking him gesturing for him to sit down at the table next to his brother and handing him a slice of buttered toast.

"I am ok mummy. A bit tired but no more than normal. How are you today?" Sherlock commented happily, taking a bite from his slice of toast and then swirling some orange juice around in his mouth.

"I am good thank you. Maybe your good mood can rub off on your brother here. He seems to have gotten out of bed on the wrong side this morning!" Mrs. Holmes answered.

"I am not in a bad mood," Mycroft started to shout but taking a deep breathe and continuing with what he was saying in a slightly calmer manner, "I just don't want to go on this holiday. I would much rather stay at home in my room."

"Well we are all going like it or not and Mycroft, you will behave even when you have to talk to Gregory. I really don't give a damn about your teenage argument. Just get over it! Preferably before we get to the airport because I don't think I will be able to keep my temper with you if all you do if sulk for three weeks."

After breakfast and the threat from his father, Mycroft dismissed himself from the table and went upstairs only to return 5 minutes later with his hand luggage and an umbrella with a forced smile on his face. They loaded up the car with their bags and they were on their way.

They arrived at the airport at 6 o clock exactly. meeting the Hooper's and the Watson's at the check in desk. It seemed that Greg was also as reluctant as Mycroft about going on this holiday because as the Holmes family was approaching the other two families, Greg's father was telling him to put a smile on his face or would have to sit next to Molly on the flight! For Mycroft, the knowledge that Greg wasn't looking forward to this just like him made him cheer up a little bit.

They quickly went through check in, getting rid of their very heavy bags in the process and they decided to also go straight through security so that they would have a lot of time in duty free. Approaching security all of the older children and adults got out their electrical items while the Watson twins were grabbed by one of their parents causing them to moan and complain.

Unfortunately for all members of the holiday party, Mr and Mrs Watson were not able to control their children as much as they would have hoped.

"Who's child is this?" A security guard shouted, his voice resonating across the whole scanning area.

"Yes he's ours. What's he done now?" Mr. Watson replied trying to make the whole matter a bit of a joke.

"This is a serious matter, sir!" The security guard said "This young man was carrying a knife in his coat pocket!"

"A knife! Why the bloody hell were you carrying a knife, Simon?"

"It was only a table knife, Dad. William dared me to do it." Simon whined.

"Yes it is a standard butter knife but its still a very dangerous item for you to be carrying. You shouldn't listen to William in the future because it sounds like he will get you into serious trouble in the future." The security guard replied.

"A butter knife? All this because of a butter knife! What's he going to do? Use the butter knife to open the door to the cock pit and spread the bloody pilot to death with an airline pack of butter?" Mr. Waston shouted back at the security guard, "He's eight. Not exactly a trained terrorist!"

"Sir, this is a serious matter! After all of the problems that have happened in the past, we have to take all security matters very seriously! How do we know what this boy is capable of?"

"He's only a kid. He did it for a dare," Mrs. Watson cut it, trying to prevent his husband from assaulting an airport security personnel.

"Well as this seems to be his first run in with us… I think we will just let it pass. I hope you have a very nice holiday." The security guard finished, walking away from the family.

"The bloody cheek of him! He has no right to just drag my son out here and humiliate him in front of the entire airport. He's like the Stalin of the bloody security force…"

"Darling just calm down. Your making a scene!" Mrs. Watson intervened.

After they had all gone through the scanning machines, all of the children handed their passports back to their parents and as Mycroft did so William stole it out of his grasp.

"Give it make to me you bloody idiot." Mycroft shouted as he tried to chase after the younger boy. However he did not have much luck and managed to even lose him in the crowds. He found him gathered around the Greg, Sherlock, Molly, John and Simon showing them his passport. "You have no right looking at that. Its private."

"I remember when you got this done. It was about two years ago and Mother forced you to get a hair cut especially for it." Sherlock started to chuckled as the word came out of his mouth. He took a deep breath, composing himself before he continued. " It didn't help that your hair was cut to short and it made your glasses look really stupid." He carried on laughing.

"I never knew that you wore glasses." Greg muttered, looking at Mycroft briefly.

"Yes… well… I do… well only when I have too. Most of the time I wear glasses because I look hideous in them but I suppose that you would find out about it some time during this holiday so William stealing my passport wasn't such a bad thing." Mycroft admitted.

"You look awful, like a bold Simon Cowell." Simon laughed.

"And that's why I didn't want anyone seeing my passport photo." The 'Simon Cowell' comment made all the children laugh even Mycroft and they continued to laugh until their parents came back over and told them to calm down a little bit.

When they managed to calm the children down, the parents handed each child an envelope.

"We have all decided that you all deserve an early Christmas present" Baron Hooper started, "Each child has a specific amount of money depending on their age and you will spend it wisely. I hope that you will all enjoy this little present,"

All children beamed and thanked Baron and Baroness Hooper for their generosity that had cost them £1050 in total. All the parents ushered the children away telling them to have some fun in the airport but making sure that they met them at the correct gate at 8:30. The young Hooper twins quickly scrambled away from their parents before John quickly followed them shouting at them to slow down because they were too young to wonder around a big airport alone.

An hour later, all the children had ended up staying together to avoid problems meaning that they had to go into most of the shops in duty free to please everyone. The twins had even managed to cause quite a stir in McDonalds when they were ordering some food. Mycroft realised from that moment that there was going to be many problems on this holiday due to the troublesome duo.

Greg and Mycroft were in the queue, pretty much silently, about to order the meal while Sherlock, John, Molly and Harry were sitting at a large table in the middle of the restaurant. The twins were running around the empty restaurant (except for a couple in the corner) and no one stopped them because they all hoped that they would be able to run their hyper-activeness off. However an elderly couple entered the restaurant just as the boys were running around the corner and they collided with the couple with such a force that the couple feel flat on their backs with the boys on top of them. When Mycroft and Greg heard the screams, they immediately associated them with the twins and ran to the scene of the incident.

The elderly couple were lying on the hard floor flapping about whilst ordering the boys off them. The boys complied, carefully climbing off the couple and brushing themselves down. Mycroft and Greg helped the couple up while apologising profusely for the boys behaviour and handing them a tenner hoping that they would just let the incident go by unnoticed.

They had to run to the gate after the little accident in McDonalds otherwise they would miss their flight. However to make them even later, Mycroft got them lost.

"We're in the wrong bloody terminal!" Greg shouted at Mycroft.

"I did hear what the man just said. I don't need it repeated to me again in a more annoying tone thank you."

"I thought you had memorised the layout of the airport?"

"I did but when one is in a very small area which has three McDonald's that look very similar, it takes a lot of brain power not to confuse them up while running around and hearing everyone shout about how we are going the wrong way."

"Can you please speak normal, modern English please. No one says 'one' anymore you arrogant prat!"

"Well one should still speak correctly even when they are in a very strenuous situation."

"For god's sake Mycroft! I know that you find it hard to act like a normal human being but can you please try for once because I do not want to cope with your bloody moods all holiday. It's the only time I get to rest all year and I don't want you sulking around driving me mental all day everyday."

"Can you please…. Shut up…. The both of you….. We need to find out where we are going and …. Quickly… possibly before I die from all the running" John Watson shouted at the bickering boys whilst holding onto his sides. Mycroft looked around before starting to run towards what they hoped was the right terminal. "I know that you two are having a bit of a …problem in your friendship but can you please just try to get along for 5 minutes."

"Are all football players this unfit?" Mycroft muttered the insult that was aimed at John .

Greg replied, quietly "Well if you look to your right then you will be able to see the fittest and hottest boy you have ever met and he definatly doesn't seem to be out of breathe." Mycroft glanced over at him and Greg saw embarrassment cover Mycroft's face. I probably shouldn't have said that Greg thought.

They must have looked a right scene running around the airport trying to find the right gate, especially with Sherlock and Mycroft running weirdly due to their long, lanky limbs going all over the place, because people had started to stop and film them. They ran along the conveyer-belt escalators panting and wheezing so that they could use a little bit of electrical power and a lot less of their own body to get to the gate on time. Some of the children managed to drop things that they were carrying in their hands while running and had to run back to get the items, slowing down their search party. Harry even managed to slide along the freshly polished floor causing her to fall onto the floor and slide along on her stomach it like a penguin on ice before someone managed to pick her up off the floor and drag her towards the gate which had just appeared in their sight.

There they met their parents, who were shouting at them telling them to hurry up, and the airport staff who were doing the same thing because the flight was going to leave without them soon. They all bustled onto a shuttle bus that took them to plane and managed to get off and climb the stairs to the aircraft with impeccable speed. The airhostesses briefly looked at their boarding passes and passports, showing them to where they were seated. Baroness Hooper managed to speak to the pilot personally and apologised for their lateness (they had managed to delay the flight and cause quite a problem at traffic control) Shock overcame most of them as they realised that they were actually flying business class! They settled into their allocated seats and strapped themselves in before the aeroplane took off.

Luckily, even with the rush of being late, all the children had managed to sit next to or near to someone who they got along with (Molly and Sherlock were sat next to one another with Harry and John sitting in front of them, the twins were sitting behind them kicking their chairs but unfortunately Greg and Mycroft were forced next to one another.) As soon as Greg and Mycroft realised that they had to sit next to one another for 9 hours they tried to swap however the plane was about to take off so they just had to cope with the situation they were in. To try to calm them down, Baron Hooper pointed out that at least they were in front of John so Greg could easily turn around and talk to him about football but Mycroft simply muttered some curse words under his breathe.

After the seat belt sign had been removed, everyone tried to get more comfortable, walking up and down the aisles, going to the toilet and getting out various electronic devices out of their bags. Sherlock, Molly and Harry started to talk about school but stopped after a few minutes because they didn't really want to think about the impeding exams they lay ahead for them. So they started to talk about a few of Sherlock's experiments that he was going to do while in America and about anything that they really wanted to do in America. Harry was an adrenaline junkie so she wanted to go to all the theme parks and Molly as had the same thing in her mind but this did not interest Sherlock at all so zoned out while the pair talked about various rides that they really wanted to go on if they were tall enough. This conversation managed to last for longer than Sherlock had expected so he got his iPad out and started to read some new medical journals that had just come out about depression and whether he could induce it in someone while on a very boring 9 hour flight just for his entertainment. (its obvious who that someone was.)

John had found his way into their conversation half way through the flight when Molly asked him what he wanted to do when he left school. He revealed that he wanted to go to university to study medicine and hopefully own his own practice once he had become successful enough. This led to Sherlock and John having a long conversation about the pros and cons of being in the medical profession in which John had swore at Sherlock when he said that it was a job for someone who had no idea what they wanted to be and just wanted a lot of money and then they spoke about what kind of medicine he would go into.

However 2 seats in front of them, the atmosphere was icy. Greg had managed to make the situation even worst by saying the 'fittest boy' comment. Greg still did not understand why Mycroft was acting like he didn't like him and he really didn't want to be the one who would start the conversation off again. Of course he knew that it must be awkward, you brother revealing that he looked at some of Greg's Facebook photos while wanking and then saying his name as he orgasmed, but he honestly didn't mind. In his opinion it was quite flattering. He wondered which photos they were although he could easily guess which ones they were because he only had a few photos that were firstly just of him, secondly with him not in a football kit and thirdly with hardly any clothes on. He didn't want to cope with angry Mycroft so he left him the way he was, on his laptop typing something onto Microsoft Word.

The rest of the journey went by pretty much smoothly except for Sherlock getting so bored that he nearly opened and jumped out of the emergency doors. He didn't seem to be one to just sit still and watch a movie like the rest of the children were. Mycroft was still on his laptop but had his earphones plugged into the sound system meaning that he could hear the movie and every once in a while Greg could hear Mycroft muttering the end of the film before it had even started. This amused Greg for the first few times but after the 3rd time he hit Mycroft with the health and safety manual before he had a chance to ruin the ending for him.

When the plane (finally) arrived in America after what Greg would explain to be the WORST, MOST BORING AND LONGEST FLIGHT he had ever been on (Simon had thrown up all over Mr Watson, Sherlock was nearly attacked by one of the angry airhostesses who he had deduced and all Mycroft had done was move about every five seconds kicking Greg every time causing him to feel like he had just been in a fight because all of his muscles hurt from the kicking and the sensation of flying.), they got off the plane, went through customs and collected their bags without any problems-for once.

The children (well not all of them would come under the category of children but still, it was easier just to class them as children) waited just outside the airport because the adults had to confirm their car rentals so that they could go to their villa. They soon found out that wearing trousers was not the best idea that had crossed the boys' minds when packing because it was absolutely boiling. But not just boiling as in the sun is hitting you with such a blaze that you practically sweat to death, no it was the kind of weather that did that but also made you feel really claustrophobic even when you are in an open space due to the air being so humid.

They all piled into the two white Chevrolet Orlando's that their parents had arrived at the front of the airport in and they were on their way to the villa. Sherlock was shocked that one country could be so beautiful in so many different ways. In its own right Sherlock found England beautiful with its impressive historic monuments that were known about throughout the world and interesting facts that Sherlock could spend hours finding out every single detail about but Florida was something extremely different. The fact that there was so many different things that Sherlock had to find out about one place was something that he looked forward to investigating very much. He also loved that everything seemed so open and free unlike England where everything seemed to be so tightly packed together. Florida of course was not as amazing London in Sherlock's opinion but coming a close second.

They arrived at the villa in under half an hour. The villa was absolutely beautiful with 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (2 of which are en suites), a open plan kitchen-dinner, mai living room and many smaller reception rooms. The villa even had a swimming pool much to Molly and Harry's delight.

The time came that they had all been dreading. Choosing bedrooms.

Harry and Molly had naturally decided to go together and their was no arguing about that decision. They took the only downstairs bedroom which contained a walk in wardrobe, a very large double bed and a lovely view of the pool and golf course that the villa was located next too. The twins also had it easy because they were forced to go together mostly because there was no one their age to share with. They went into the first bedrrom upstairs which contained two single beds, two wardrobes and was situated right next to the family bathroom and Mr and Mrs Watson's room.

Placing the four remaining boys into rooms would be the hard bit. Mycroft and Sherlock would never share a room, they were so used to their own company and being forced to share a room would result in a murder. Mycroft and Greg could not share a room because of obvious reasons. That didn't give them much of a choice.

"This what you have to decide about amongst yourselves. Greg and Mycroft in one room so John and Sherlock share the other. Sherlock and Greg in one, John and Mycroft in the other. Or, Sherlock and Mycroft, John and Greg. You decide but please, don't take too long we would like to actually do something today." Baron Hooper said.

They sat there staring at one another for a few moments.

"I have no problems sharing with anyone so just put me in any room

, as long as it has a bed." John shrugged.

"I am not sharing a room with Mycroft. End of!" Sherlock stated simply adding, "Can't I just be in a room on my own? It would be much easier that way?"

"There are only 7 bedrooms Sherlock. Maybe we should write down who wants to be with who and then maybe we can figure out the best solution." Mycroft started to say, "So John doesn't care…"

"Its fine I have figured it out, unlike you morons. John and Sherlock, you two can share. There isn't that big an age gap between the two of you so it make sense that you two should share. Maybe you will become friends?" The pair started at Greg like he had said something really stupid, "Ok not that likely but I was only stating a fact. "

"But that means that…. We…. Have to share?"Mycroft spat out.

"Yes of course. I thought that was perfectly obvious especially for someone who claims to be superior to everyone at school due to his amazing intellectual knowledge . Come on. We might as well start to unpack."

The four boys started to go upstairs to their rooms heaving their heavy bags behind them.

"Why are you making me share with you? I thought that after my brother… told you about my… masturbation habits and what happened in the class room ages age that you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me" Mycroft asked.

"I am not forcing you to share a room with me. I simply stated that we should share a room."

"That's what I call forcing, Gregory. You know that I can't say no because your being nice to me and my parents would kill me if they knew that I wasn't and even if I did say no I would have nowhere else to sleep!" Mycroft rambled, catching a breath at the end of his speech.

"Well that's true and to answer your previous question, maybe if I share a room with you, then you will admit that you want actually want to talk to me or even maybe even go further than talking." Mycroft stopped abruptly on the stairs.

"I also want to see you in your glasses."


	8. The Holiday - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The families go to numerous American Theme Parks...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little bit different to the other ones in this story. It's in first person but each day is written in the form of a diary entry and each day is in someone elses perspective. Hope you enjoy :)

Day 1: 17/12-Molly

Hello to whoever is reading this,

Molly here. Its kind of weird sitting here writing about the day that we have just had but hopefully it will be a nice thing to look back on in years to come.

Yesterday, we had a meeting downstairs in the living room to determine what theme parks we were going to go to over the next week. There was exactly 7 theme parks that we could go to and exactly 6 days to do it all in but we were told to only choice 5 theme parks to go to because we might find that we don't have time to go on all the rides in some of the parks so we might want to go back so that we can go on the rides which we missed or to go on some of our favourites again.

In the end we decided to go to Sea World (that was the Watson's twins choice and at first we all moaned about going to a theme park with loads of animals but after Mycroft Googled Sea World we were actually informed that there were plenty of rides and there was even some very interesting animals there) , Universal Studios (that went straight onto the list without us even discussing it), Aquatica, Wet n'Wild (even though both Aquatica and Wet n' Wild are pretty similar, our mums said that we had to go to them both firstly because water helps you to tan-which they really wanted- and secondly because it meant that they could sit down and rest their feet after all the walking that they would have to do) and Bush Gardens.

We decided that we would go to Sea World on the first day so that we could get used to both the heat and the walking by doing the theme park which involved sitting down the most first. After the little meeting in the living room, Sherlock, Harry and I went back outside to continue looking through some of Sherlock's science books about animals that only live in America. The twins ran straight outside and jumped into the pool, Greg also joined them in the pool but only after disappearing for 5 minutes and returning in a t shirt and some swimming trunks. Mycroft had placed himself on one of the deck chairs in the shade reading a book that he seemed very interested in as he did not look up once, not even when Simon screamed at William because he pushed him into the swimming pool.

However I noticed that Mycroft looked up briefly when Greg came outside but quickly returned to his book. It was only because I had to put some more sun cream on that I even noticed that moment. After Mycroft returned to his book, Greg looked at him while he took his t shirt off. Now that was weird. But it only got weirder when Mycroft looked up at Greg and… well it looked like he was 'checking him out' but I cannot be sure because I was too far away from both of the boys. But one thing I know for certain is that when Greg caught Mycroft's gaze and Mycroft quickly fumbled around with his bottle of sun cream, applying more to his pale skin, Greg smirked. He smirked for goodness sake. Like he was pleased with himself. I have heard about all the rumour that concern both Mycroft and Greg but I didn't think for a minute that they could possible be true. Mycroft is so…. distant from everyone to even manage to get feelings towards anyone but it was obvious to me now that something had defiantly happened between them after that match. (I hope Greg or Mycroft don't read my diary entry because they might kill me and if either one of you are reading this right now, I would like to just point out that I brought you [Greg] a very nice birthday present which cost a lot of money and I have never done anything bad to you Mycroft so I hope you can both forgive me?)

Unfortunately, I was unable to see if anything else happened between Greg and Mycroft because while I had been watching them, Sherlock and Harry had gotten off the deck chairs and were beginning to go into the villa. I caught up with them and we carried on reading more books inside before playing a game of Cluedo which went horribly wrong.  
But back to our day at the Sea World. That morning Harry and I woke up really earlier, mostly because we were not used to the time difference but also because we were excited to go on all the different rides. I had a quick shower before getting dressed and packing my bag but Harry did not have a shower instead opting to stay in her warm bed for a few more minutes and getting ready when I came back. I made sure to pack some sun cream, sunglasses and a book in case I got bored watching one of the shows.

Once both of us were ready, we went into the kitchen carrying our bags, breathing in the smell of bacon and eggs that filled the whole villa. It was mouth watering. We found mum and dad in the kitchen cooking many different things ranging from eggs and bacon to toast and jam. Mr and Mrs Watson were sitting at the table with the twins on either side of them, Mr Watson reading the newspaper and Mrs Watson talking to my mother from her position at the table. My parents passed us some plates and told us to put whatever we wanted on our plates and we happily complied feeling our stomachs rumble as they mentioned eating. We eat up our cooked breakfast in record speed, thanking my parents as we took the plates back to the table to be washed up.

Mr and Mrs Holmes walked in looking very happy. Even after all the times that I had been round their house, I don't think I have ever seen them as happy as they were there. They were smiling at one another just like my parents do all the time but my parents and Sherlock's parents were entirely different so it was very comforting to see them looking at each other in such a kind way. Everyone talked contently and not long afterward Sherlock and John walked in. John looked very tired but Sherlock looked just like his normal self. Charming and Dashing as usual.

"Someone could have warned me that he likes to play the violin in the middle of the night." John stated rubbing his eyes and yawning over dramatically.

"I though you said last night that you enjoyed me playing. If I remember correctly your words were that 'it was a very therapeutic way to fall asleep'." It was so funny to hear the banter between the pair. Hopefully they will get on. It would be nice to see Sherlock with ore friends. He doesn't really get on with anyone that I introduce to him but I suppose everyone I introduce him to are girls who think that he is really cute (although they don't think so after he had deduced them, some even run away from him crying.)

After everyone had stopped laughing, the parents ordered us to start getting our things ready to go because we would have to be leaving shortly. At that stage we totally forgot to think about the other two boys who had not appeared from their room yet. We had all of our stuff ready to go at the door when we realised that they were missing. I was told to run upstairs quickly to tell them to get changed quickly because we were all ready to go. I did as I was told and they quickly got ready (although they did end up swearing a bit after they found out what time it was.) Mycroft did get rather angry when he was forced to wear his glasses out of the house but he did bring some contact lenses with him so that he wouldn't have to wear them all day. Greg managed to get in about 5 jokes about his glasses before we even left the house and I could tell that if he didn't shut up soon he would be lying in a bed full of tomato ketchup that night. But whatever Mycroft's revenge would be, it would be funny so I did not stop my brother from taking the piss of Mycroft's glasses.

The car journey was pretty uneventful so there is no point in commenting about it. When we got to the theme park we were handed passes that would get us into any theme park for the next week and we went straight through the queues and towards the dolphin nursery.

The day before we found out that Simon had a slight fascination about dolphins (we don't really understand why but who can really understand the brain of an eight year old boy) so it was obvious that we would have to see every dolphin in the vicinity of the park before we left for the day. We quickly went around the dolphin nursery and Simon even managed to touch one of them so he was literally bouncing around the nursery by the time we got out of there and went on our way.

At this stage we decided to split up. We had to meet back at the dolphin nursery at 2 o'clock so that we can watch the Sealion show and then the Shamu show. We all had some of our Christmas money that we were told to use on food and any souvenirs and we were told to listen to Mycroft and Greg and if we wandered away from them then we wouldn't be able to do this again. Both Simon and William were not interested in the slightest about the bigger rides so they went off with Mum, Mrs Holmes and Mrs Watson to go on some of the smaller rides and look at some other animals. Dad., Mr Holmes and Mr Watson went off together. No one knows what they did while they went off but we suspected that they turned into little boys and decided to go on all the big rides as many times as possible before they had to met us again.

So Sherlock, John, Harry, Mycroft, Greg and I went off together. Sherlock was not particularly interested in going on the rides as 'he didn't see the point in going on a metal machine just to feel a thrill' however Harry and I forced him to come with us so that we could prove him wrong.

The first ride we decided to go on was called the journey to Atlantis. According to Mycroft, who had once again memorised every detail about the theme park, this ride was not very scary but you did get wet, Luckily my mother had bought us some waterproofs before we even got to the theme park so at least we knew that we wouldn't get too wet.

The queue was not too long (only 30 minutes) so it went by quickly. The ride overall was ok. Not as thrilling as some of the things that I have been on before but the drop at the end provided me with a temporary feeling that my stomach was not in my body any more so it wasn't too bad. Everyone had managed to get slightly wet but no one really cared about it too much. Sherlock ran his hands through his hair and he looked gorgeous. I know that that use of the word might seem a little bit weird but that was the first word that came into my mind when I first saw him with his hair soaking wet but even curlier than usually. It made his face look even more angelic than it usually did and for once he looked casual in his normal clothes and damp hair.  
The next ride we went on was the Kraken and it looked absolutely scary. It was gianormous and it didn't have a floor to put your feet on. You could tell from the look on Mycroft's face that he wasn't entirely comfortable with going on this ride however his brother looked absolutely excited. We all got into the queue and ended up bored after the hour wait although Mycroft seemed to be the only one who wasn't bored. Greg leaned forward and whispered into Mycroft's ear a few times during the duration of the wait. Mycroft just nodded, not looking Greg in the eyes each time.

When we were about to get onto the ride we had a quick panic because Mycroft got up off his seat and swapped with Sherlock but eventually everything was ok. I later found out that Mycroft swapped with Sherlock so he could sit next to Greg. AWW how cute ;) Apparently Mycroft was so scared that he didn't even scream and when they were getting off, Greg had to undo his seatbelt that let the restraint off him because he was in shock!

The ride was incredible (even if it did scare Mycroft senseless.) It was so fast and high. It felt like the rest of the world was spinning and you felt so exhilarated having nothing to hold your feet against. Both Sherlock and Harry seemed to enjoy the ride as much as I did because they didn't stop talking about it all through lunch.

After lunch we went on one more ride, the Manta (the one ride that we had all been desperate to go on out of all the rides in Sea World). By this stage in the day, Sherlock had began to start to enjoy the thrill of the roller coasters and he actually didn't moan in the queue for the ride. Everyone went on this ride even though Mycroft had tried to get out of it. However Greg had managed to convince him after a small hushed conversation. I am still not sure exactly what Greg said to Mycroft but it must have been really threatening otherwise he wouldn't have come on with us. Mycroft once again sat next to Greg. This ride was just as we anticipated it to be. Incredible. I am not sure whether it was better than the Kraken because the Manta provided a totally different experience to the Kraken. On the Manta you felt like you were flying. Like a bird or a pilot in a plane. It was not like anything I had experienced before and it makes me happy just to think about how I felt on that ride in between my best friends having the time of my life. It also helped that the weather was incredible (even though it was December).

We met everyone back at the dolphin nursery promptly and we went off toward the sealion show. The younger boys seemed to be more excited about the show going into the auditorium but when we went out it, Harry, Sherlock and I seemed to have found it more enjoyable than the twins. I don't think I have ever laughed so much in front of Sherlock. The act wasn't extremely funny but it started to become even funnier when Sherlock started to deduce things about the pirates and started to think up experiments that we could perform on the otters and sealions. It was very 'Sherlock' of him to do this.

We then went to watch Shamu and in the process we got soaked. We did not have as much fun as we did at the last show due to the lack of deductions and Harry muttering things about animal cruelty. However it was rather funny when Greg and Mycroft along with other members of the rows in front of us got absolutely drenched by Shamu. At first Mycroft looked like he was about to kill the bloody whale and Greg just looked shocked but after a moment of silence they began to laugh with us.  
In order to make sure that the car didn't get too wet we had to place towels on the floor where Mycroft and Greg sat. This did help a little bit but not an awful lot. All the way home, Mum questioned the boys about whether they had made up after their argument but they didn't really say much in regards to any of the questions so it was obvious they had just slipped into old habits without realising it.  
For dinner we went out to eat at an amazing diner down the road from our villa. We all spoke about what we did at the theme park and enjoyed our meal. Greg and Mycroft returned to just ignoring at each other, fumbling about a bit if they even looked at each other. It was starting to get annoying by the end of the evening.

We went to bed after saying our goodnights. Harry and I spoke for half an hour or so before we eventually went to sleep. It was a very enjoyable first day out and about in America.

Day 2: 18/12- Mycroft

I don't really understand why I am having to do this but I might as well use it to my advantage.

After the previous day's fairly untiring day, we (by which I mean everyone except me) decided at dinner on 17th , that it would be a good idea to have a bit more of a strenuous day out while the weather is a little bit cooler. So it was obvious from their comments that we would be going to Universal studios.

Personally, at first, when I learnt that we would have to go on holiday and do… normal things like going to one of the most famous theme parks in the world I was mortified. The idea of making yourself scared for fun did not excite me like some so I knew I would not enjoy the experience. Unlike Sherlock. He seemed to love the idea of scaring yourself to death for fun but maybe that's what Molly's influence has done to him.

Although I must say that I did find that the rides made my brain work much quicker. like a catalyst being injected through my veins but I was not able to experience that for long due to the one thing I am afraid of. The one thing that truly mortifies me. Not because of a logical reason like most phobias that people have. A bad experience or a bad associate. Mine was about control. Everything was always about control. You are probably wondering why I like to be in control especially when I ,so easily let someone get that close to me that I could feel every hair on their body against mine, pressing against me, letting their tongue enter my mouth and practically licking the lingering taste of coffee and cream out of my mouth. All knowing that my father could walk into the room and see me… doing… this.

But you must understand that I was in control of that situation. Totally. 100% in control. I wanted it the feel how so many people do when they feel certain ways towards a person. I wanted to see if I was capable of such a thing because I have done things like I did on the settee of my house that day, contrary to popular belief although I have never felt the same way that I did then. I defiantly didn't feel… love or anything close to that but I felt something stronger than wanting to feel the lips on my mouth. I felt like if I didn't have the pressure of his lips on mine or anywhere else for that matter, I might regret my actions because my body was aching for that feeling to continue. To continue for a very long time because my body actually enjoyed the feeling. The thrill. The comfort. The pleasure.

But now Gregory knows about my fear. My irrational fear that makes me look like an utter imbecile. I don't think that there could be a worst person on the planet at the moment to know one of my darkest secrets and because of that secret, it reveals a flaw in my personality. That I can be scared to such an extent that I would beg to try and escape its grasp.

However Gregory was too nice about the whole situation. He listened when I told him that although I felt worried going on the first ride, it was nothing like the feeling I felt before I went on the second. The second took away one of the only things left that I could control. My feet. There was no floor on that roller coaster so my feet and legs were forced to move as the wind told them to. He whispered in my ear telling me that everything would be fine, trying to prevent me from hyperventilating. He managed to do quite a good job of helping me to forget about the… issue by just being near me (but not too near, that would have been awkward), muttering words and sometimes just breathing into my ear. I still found the ride rather horrible but I did feel more at ease than I did before I went on it. He managed to even drag me onto another ride, noticing that I grew slightly anxious as we got closer, so he whispered :

"If you want to get over this fear," his breath caught in his throat as he tried to say the next words, "of not being in total control then you must overcome it and this is a good way for it to happen." So I did. I just tried to let my fear wash over me. However this was as not as easy as it sounded.

The morning of the 18th December, both Gregory and I managed to wake up on time, unlike the previous day. We set our alarm clocks extra early and even set more than on alarm so that there was no chance of sleeping through all the noise. We quickly got ready, not needing to have a shower because we had one the previous night so we went down stairs. Breakfast was supposedly how it was the day before however we did not have any of the breakfast yesterday so the experience was new to us. All I can say about the quality of the cooking is that Baroness Hooper is an amazing cook. Everything was perfectly cooked and the different tastes of the different foods complemented each other exquisitely.

After having breakfast we were all ready, except for Molly and Harry, who seemed to be packing their entire wardrobes into their bags for some reason that I, nor any of the males in the house could understand. We all went out of the house and got into the luxury rented cars. We got to Universal Studios just before 9 o'clock because everyone seemed adamant to get their early so that we could spend as much time as possible going on the rides. Sherlock, although he was hiding it quite well, was desperate to go on all the Harry Potter rides due to a slight obsession with the books. This was one of the only things that Sherlock had ever become infatuated on (minus Redbeard) but he wouldn't let anyone know about this so he was trying (and failing) to keep calm every time he saw a poster about the Harry Potter rides.

We got out our passes, got them scanned and went in. The park was fairly big so as soon as I got a map I tried to memorise it as best as I could. Much to everyone's disappointment, it looked like we would all be staying together in one group due to the sheer size of the park and the fact that everyone wanted to go on the same rides. The first ride we spotted was the Incredible Hulk ride. It looked like the ultimate ride for 'adrenaline junkies' but the worst kind of ride for someone who didn't like to feel out of control. It was fast, high up and terrifying.

However our parents told us that we would have to go on that ride last because Simon and William were not tall enough to go on it and hopefully by the end of the day they would be too tired to even bother with stopping us from going on it. So we decided to go on the Spiderman ride. Both Gregory and John seemed quite excited by this and were talking about all the amazing 3D effects on this ride and how it was meant to be pretty 'awesome'.

While we were in the queue, all the parents were talking among themselves, Sherlock, Harry, Molly and the twins were talking about some kind of project they were doing while on holiday and John and Gregory were still talking about the ride. They all did this until we got onto the ride because they couldn't exact talk all the way through it.

Overall the ride was ok. Just as John and Gregory had said, the 3D effects were the main reason why it was so good. Nothing more, nothing less. We decided to walk for a bit so that we could find a ride that everyone wanted to go on. This took quite a while because to do this we had to walk all the way through Dr. Seuss land and I don't think anyone in our group over the age of 10 wanted to ever go on one of those rides. After walking for about 20 minutes we reached The Revenge of the Mummy ride which was an indoor ride. We quickly joined the express pass queue (because we had somehow, managed to obtain express passes for universal studios in between getting off the Spiderman ride and arriving at this ride) and only waited a few moments before we were placed onto the ride. It was actually quite enjoyable, probably the best ride that I have been so far. Mostly because I couldn't see what would control me next. I even managed to make a joke with Gregory about that fact and he actually smiled.

After that, from what I could deduce he didn't seem so frosty with me, trying to make an effort to get along with me and I managed to join in the conversation with Gregory and John. Mostly they spoke about football and school so I only said something a few times but the times that I did speak they both listened to me and that had to be a good sign. While we were walking, William and Simon were running around and flapping their arms all over the place. They looked like Baboons on heat. It did make a few people stop and stare at the two boys who were having to be restrained by their parents when one of them managed to run into a bollard and get winded. John seemed to be quite embarrassed by their behaviour. I probably would have been the same if it had been Sherlock doing any of those things.

Mrs Watson suggested that we go and watch either Shrek 4D or Despicable me so that the boys could calm down enough before doing on another ride. Everyone under the age of 10 voted that we should watch Despicable me, everyone between the ages of 10 and 14 voted that we should watch Shrek and everyone else did not vote at all. However, in the end the parents as usual said that we should go with what the youngest/most bratty children said. So everyone started to queue up to go and watch the show which started in 10 minutes but I managed to lie about having a headache so I could stay outside and find a bit of peace and quiet. Now that was what the doctor ordered.

I did find a very… what some people might call lonely place (although I called it picturesque) to sit and just relax by catching my thoughts. It was a very nice 10 minutes that I had and probably the best 10 minutes I had had for the past two days when Gregory Lestrade managed to destroy the moment.

We managed to fall into an awkward silence (well what I thought was awkward), not because it was awkward in the way that you may think but because at this stage I was sitting on a rather small brick wall that must have been another building before they built this theatre and knocked down the old one. As Gregory was talking to me he had managed to sit on this brick wall next to me and I only noticed that he had done this when his leg came into contact with mine. His left hip was practically digging into mine and this was rather distracting. Therefore I did not start up the conversation again until Gregory pulled out a small box and offered it towards me.

"Why on earth would I want one of those?" I said.

"I just thought it was polite to offer you one." he said as he placed the small rolled up tube of death between his fingers. The way he held it was not how I expected him to do so. I imaged that he would just put it inbetween his fingers and grip onto it before lighting it up. However the tube was placed delicately between his rather long, slim fingers but his fingers did not grip onto it with a great force but his fingers simply stayed where they were with the cigarette resting between them. He lit it up with such little effert and sucked on the cigarette.

"You do realise that your football coach will tell you to stop when he finds out about your little habit."

"He wont find out."

"I did."

"Well you're different. You can just look at me and know that I smoke. How many would you say I smoke a week?"

I could pin point the exact day when Gregory started to smoke and how he had gotten into the little habit. At this point in my life, I thought that Gregory was just an arsehole. Just another football arsehole. But of course I was wrong because even though deduction could make me realise what a person's secrets were, they would never help me to understand why these secrets made them into who they are. So naturally when I began to learn more about Gregory I realised little things about him just like the fact that he did not only start smoking because his friends told him to try it at a party but because he wanted to feel calmer, not having to worry about football and his father. "Probably one at most. If even that."

"Well done. You are the first person who I have met who doesn't smoke and hasn't said anything about how bad it is to smoke."

"Its your choice. Even if it is a bad one. I don't think that I could ever make you stop even if I was bothered in trying."

"And you don't want me to stop so that I can live a long and healthy life."

"That's not what I am saying. I am just trying to point out that there is no way on this earth that you would stop if I asked you to."

His voice dropped an octave as he said, "And how do you know that. You wouldn't even to listen to me in Latin when I tried to tell you how I feel."

"Stop that."

"Stop what"

"The voice thing. I know what you are doing. I can read you like a book, Gregory."

"And you don't want me to do that?"

"You're just complicating things."

"And how is this complicating things. I am simply trying to understand what you really want, not what Mycroft's double wants."  
However I was not able to find out what he meant by "Mycroft's mask" because Sherlock was approaching us. He told us that the movie had finished and that they were going to have lunch and then go to Harry Potter world (finally- I didn't think that Sherlock could cope any longer, the anticipation and excitement was just rising with every minute). He asked to try one of Gregory's cigarettes at which I immediately told him the dangers of smoking and if he was ever to try one, I would personally take a pair of scissors to all his clothes except for his socks so that he would have to walk around all day in nothing but a pair of socks. As we followed Greg whispered into my ear (very seductively) something that would make me unable to speak for the next hour first due to shock but later because I had to try and think of what he meant:

"I wish you had done that to me. Tell me that you thought it was dangerous for me to do and order that I would never do it again otherwise you wouldn't talk to me. I probably would have stopped if you said that to me. I would try anything to stop if that meant that I could hear your voice."

When we reached Harry Potter World, Sherlock was more than ecstatic. He was absolutely off his head with excitement. He resembled the twins earlier on in the day just before they were restrained by their parents. Although no one tried to restrain Sherlock because they all knew that it would not work as Sherlock's boxing and karate training would give him the upper hand. Instead John tried to catch Sherlock up when he headed off towards Ollivander's. John said something to Sherlock that made him stop and then engage in conversation until we caught up with them. I found out, when I approached that John was just a big a fan of Harry Potter as Sherlock was and they both were talking about their favourite characters. This conversation continued as we joined the express pass queue for the Dragon challenge and carried on all the way until we reached the ride itself. Despite only having read the first book of the series, after listening to their conversation, I could tell you exactly what each book was about and why each book was 'utterly amazing'. I also got onto the ride with a worst headache than I had when I got into the queue.

The ride was pretty good although Sherlock shouting about how realistic it was did ruin it slightly. Only slightly because Greg was sitting right next to me and the seats were very small and very close together. We were practically pushed against each other. It was very comforting. I felt the need to move my arm behind his head so that we had more room but I quickly pushed the thought away because that would be awkward and would mean that I could not feel Gregory's body heat escaping towards me.

I think that Gregory might have been right about John and Sherlock becoming friends if they shared a room because at midnight, even though they seemed very exhausted at dinner, they were still talking about the series of books. The rest of the day was spent in Harry Potter world due to the size of the queues (even the fast track queues) and because Sherlock and John would not let us leave if we had not been on all the Harry Potter rides. However because of this, we all came to the conclusion that we would have to come back to go on all the other rides which we did not have time to go on. There were so many left to visit!

I went to bed happy and content with the voices of Sherlock and John filling my ears.

(I am definatly going to change this before I show this to my parents.)

 

Day 3: 19/12-Simon and William

Today we went to Busch Gardens but we had to wake up early because it was far away. We had a nice breakfast that Baroness Hooper made before we left. We got in one of the white cars which we had to share with Dad, Harry, Molly, Sherlock, Mr Holmes and Baron Hooper. Dad, Mr Holmes and Baron Hooper spoke together for the whole journey. Sherlock, Harry and Molly did the same while we played on our Nintendo.

Mum told us that we would be splitting up today because we wouldn't like the big rides. So unfair. But got to see all the animals which was fun. We saw lions and cheetahs and elephants and giraffes. They were all very fierce and strong. We even managed to drag all mums onto a small kiddy ride called the Serengeti ride (well it was only a train, not really even a ride) but they all seemed more scared than we did! I (William) dared Simon to scare mum and he did and it was epic. She screamed really loudly!  
We met back with everyone else at 6 o clock so that we could return home and have some food. We were very hungry by the time we got to the villa. Everyone got changed and had showers but we just sat in the living room and watched telly. They all finally came down and wee went out to dinner. We had beef burgers with chips and it was very yummy.

We went to bed early because mum said we were too tired to stay up and watch the adult tv programmes. It was a good day and we really enjoyed seeing all the nice animals.

Day 4: 20/11- Sherlock

This is totally stupid and there is no way I am going to do it...

Mother said I have to but there is no way I am going to do it even if she blackmails me to....

It doesn't matter that Mycroft has done it. I will not do it....

For goodness sake, I just writing his stupid diary entry just to shut her up for a minute. Today we had to go to Aquatica. It is basically a waterpark where people can show off how great they look and make themselves get sunburn because the water increases the chances of getting a tan and they think that that means that they don't have to wear suntan lotion. Wrong. They are all just incompetent idiots but Molly wont let me voice my opinions because she says it 'isn't very nice'. Of course I listen to her advice because I don't want to make her angry but I still think that they are idiots.

When I got up I was met by John Watson, staring at me from his bed. We started to talk about Harry Potter again but only briefly because I changed the conversation to football. Me. Football. I couldn't believe I had even done it but John quickly replied to all my questions as we started to get changed. It was nice to talk to someone who wasn't Harry or Molly and understood me in their own way. Once we were ready we went down and had some all needed breakfast. However this time, my parents had cooked it. It was not as nice as when Baron and Baroness Hooper cooked but it was still edible.

We all got into the cars and left at 9 carrying our, swimming towels, swimming clothes and other essentials with us. When we arrived we all went to the toilets to change and once we had, we all went towards the 'beach'. The beach was totally artificial and totally boring. The only interesting thing about the beach was that it curved around a large area of water that was controlled by a wave machine. It looked quite enjoyable and the twins had already entered the water by the time that we had reached some sun loungers (and later Mrs Watson joined them as she didn't trust them to be in there alone). Our parents told us to put our towels onto a lounger so that we could come and sit down for a bit after we go on a few rides.

Harry, Molly, John, Greg and I went towards the rides but we stopped abruptly as we realised that Mycroft was not with us. It was obvious by the way that he was holding his towel around him that he was not comfortable with Lestrade seeing him in only his trunks especially after Greg had found out that Mycroft liked him. Greg talked to Mycroft and he pulled his 'I am not doing this even if you force me to' face but Greg took him by the arm and pulled him towards us. Once my brother had stopped resisting Greg's hold on him, it became much easier for us to get to the water slide that we all wanted to go on. Lestrade's hand remained on my brother's wrist all the time while we waited in the queue and the tension between the pair became even more uncomfortable. Why couldn't they just get together. Preferably before we turn 90.

Molly and I shared a double rubber float thingy and we had a very good time as we went around. Molly's laughter filled my ears and this made me laugh even harder. By the time we had come off the ride, my stomach was aching so much that I had to bend over to alleviate the pain. Mycroft and Greg joined us a few minutes later, laughing their heads off because Mycroft managed to fall off the float with such force that he flew across the pool at the bottom of the slide. After having such a good time on that ride we decided to go on again but this time we swapped partners. All we spoke about as we waited in the queue was how Mycroft had flew across the pool and how it was such bad luck that John and Harry had missed it. Mycroft was defiantly going to be teased about that moment for the rest of his life, if not by me but by Lestrade.

The second time we went on the slide we had just as much fun but we thought that we should enjoy some other rides while we were here. Next we went on a slide that went straight down but went under the ground, through a pool which was filled with dolphins and back out into a smaller pool which was luckily not filled with dolphins. The girls were very excited to be doing this. The slide was enjoyable because of the view of the whole park that was shown through the clear pipes of the slide.  
Next we went on a water ride which was mostly inside. We had to ride in pairs and we would be taken down through many pipes that eventually led us to a a large dome shape area which had a hole in the middle of it. When we were in there, many people were also there but soon many of them fell down the hole while we kept spinning around and around the hole. After Five spins around the hole, John, Molly, Greg and Mycroft had joined Harry and I down there and we all shouted things to each other until Harry and I fell down the hole. As we fell, all we could hear was laughter above us until we fell into a large pool.

Our parents then managed to find us and called us back over to the sunbeds where food was waiting for us. We all quickly stuffed the food into our faces and escaped to the water wave machine. The waves were huge and it was quite difficult to stay in one position. We had a few failed attempts but Harry eventually got out and passed us some floats, this way we could swim out to the deeper water and then hold onto the float until we reached the beach again. As I was in the water holding onto the float, I noticed Greg splashing Mycroft with water. They started a water fight in which the twins and John also joined in, John taking Greg's side and the twins taking Mycroft's side (because for some reason they had taken a liking to my older brother). They fought for 10 minutes until we had reached the beach and joined in, splashing anyone we could. Greg managed to overpower Mycroft though by dragging him into the water by his arms and dunking him into it. Mycroft came back up spluttering and their eyes met. It was so intense and so bloody annoying. They were so close and you could see the longing in their eyes from miles away. WHY CANT THEY JUST BLOODY KISS!

And of course they did not kiss, they simply looked away and swam back to the beach. John looked at me and gave me a look. A look which told me that he knew everything and that something had to be done about it. When I went to get Molly and Harry an ice cream, John followed. We spoke about the 'lovers' and how they need to get together soon. We decided that we would have to work on them separately because they obviously aren't just going to admit their feelings on their own, John working on Greg, myself working on Mycroft. Although John did say that it wasn't best to reveal someone's masturbating habits to the person they 'like'. Instead we planned to firstly, put up some personal photos of them on my Facebook account to see how they react and then made up the next plan when we had seen how they reacted.

We all had a very good day at the waterpark but we were all very tired as the sun and all the laughing had tired us out so, instead of eating out, we ordered in Chinese. It was one of those traditional Chinese restaurants where you get your order in a little box and the food tastes less greasy and more flavoursome than a modern Chinese restaurant. It was incredible and if anything, it made us all feel even more tired than we were before we eat it. We all had an early night and silence spread throughout the house almost immediately.

Day 5: 21/12-Greg

Greg here. So today we went Wet n' Wild and it was quite fun for the younger ones but not so much for me. With every second that went by things just seemed to go from bad to worst. I woke up at 4 o clock, probably because I am slightly jet lagged but also because I felt quite anxious due to everything that happened the previous day. Mycroft's face being so close to mine, so close that I could feel his cool breath on my wet face. I could have easily kissed him but I had to stop myself, quickly. It was not the right situation for kissing him. I want it to be perfect when he finally lets me in and his parents defiantly cannot be around. I don't want them to walk in on us either.

Once I realised that I could not get back to sleep, I got out my laptop and went onto Facebook. I checked on my wall for any updates and seeing that there weren't any important once I had a quick look on Mycroft's page. As far as I could tell, Mycroft did not go on Facebook often. He only updated his status when something very interesting was happening such as a family event or a holiday (he had in fact said that he was on holiday at the moment much to my surprise.) and only had a few pictures on his page. There were 6 pictures in totally, 1 was of him with Sherlock and his parents at a wedding (this was used for his profile picture), 3 were of him and Sherlock (these were very cute and Mycroft looked very dashing in a 3 piece suit) , 1 was about some science thing that I didn't really understand and 1 was of Sherlock with a kiwi bird in New Zealand.

Although these photos on his account were really good, I found the best photos on Sherlock new account. Sherlock had only just got his account the day before we went on holiday after Harry begged him to get it because she wanted to be able to message him for free. It seemed that Sherlock had been adding loads of photos of them on holiday and of family photos to his unhackable account (believe me I tried to hack it when I needed to talk to him about Molly and he wasn't answering his phone. I couldn't get onto his account and I think that I am quite good at hacking into things!)

The first few pictures were very formal family photos in which the boys were wearing suits and bowties. They looked about a three years younger than they were at the moment and very cute. The next few photos were a bit more informal, photos of Sherlock and Mycroft when they were very little, playing in the garden. All the other photos were of them on this holiday. 25 photos of them on holiday to be precise, some of which I was going to get Sherlock to take down because I either looked like a tramp or a pervert in them. There was even one photo of Mycroft and I looking at each other rather lovingly in only our trunks.

By the time I had looked through all of the photos, studying the comments from some of the people in Sherlock's year and even a rather funny comment conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft about the photo where Mycroft and I were looking at each other in their trunks, I found himself in a very awkward situation. Lets just say that my pyjama bottoms had started to become really uncomfortable and there was no way that I could relieve the feeling firstly because there was no way that I could walk to the bathroom due to the size of my problem and secondly because I wasn't alone in the fucking room. So I spent half an hour watching funny videos of animals and thinking about my grandparents. Luckily that worked.

Mycroft woke up at 7 o clock, quickly reaching for his very sexy glasses and putting them on. We got changed in silence only acknowledging each other when I asked if he wanted some music on. I went down to breakfast first as I am so used to getting changed quickly because of football that it only took me a few minutes to put on a t shirt and shorts. No one was downstairs because it was too early, even for my parents, so I grabbed a bowl and got some cereal out.

An hour later and two episodes of coronation street later, everyone started to come down. I was asked if I wanted breakfast but I replied that I had already had breakfast. People started to talk about subjects such as the weather and what people wanted to eat on Christmas day when I decided to mention Sherlock's creepy holiday photos. He said that his account was very secure (yes it bloody well was) but that wasn't the point. His parents told him to take them down immediately, Sherlock pouted for a very long time after they said this but he stopped doing this when my parents said that we could take some proper official photos that he could put on Facebook.

Mycroft finally came down-he must have fallen asleep after I left the room and considering that he hadn't got much sleep for the past week (one night at three o clcok in the morning he had liked one of my Facebook statuses from two months back) it was a good thing that he had decided to get some sleep otherwise he would be a walking zombie. He was wearing a very tight fitting top (well it was tighter than the ones he usually wore) and a pair of shorts. I think I realised at that moment , well at least subconsciously, that things would be really awkward today, not only because of what he was wearing but also because I hadn't wanked in a week and a half and my body, just like early that day, was starting to betray me.

We arrived at Wet n'Wild at half nine, after a very tiring journey because for some reason I had to be in a car with Molly and Harry and they wouldn't shut up about the 'latest bloody fashion'. I nearly died as I had no interest at all in nail varnish and crop tops. At least, from what I could tell, Mycroft also seemed to have died during his journey because he was in a car with Sherlock and John. I don't know which car journey sounded worst. The Harry Potter Express or Fashion Central.

When we got out of the car, My father told us to get together so he could take some photos of us together. Thanks Dad. Just what was needed to make the day any worst!

I took my shirt off once we reached the beach which was very similar to the one at Aquatica, and I managed to catch Mycroft looking at me but only briefly because he saw me watching him. I would be so much easier if he just let me into his life instead of being such a stubborn git.

Molly was absolutely desperate to go on all the big group rides so we headed off in the direction that she was dragging Harry and Sherlock. By the time that we had gotten there, They were in the queue for Disco H2O and were making sure that they were tall enough for the ride. I didn't really understand why they were checking because it was obvious that the girls would be tall enough to go on and Sherlock was starting to grow even though he was taller than the girls already so he also would be tall enough to get on the ride. The problem would be getting the twins on the ride. They were smaller than most children their age and most eight year olds weren't that tall anyway. However we found out that they would be able to go on if they were accompanied by an adult which I was the only one out of the group who legally counted as one (although Mycroft looked older than I did.)

After the last few days of being forced onto rides, Mycroft was beginning to stay calm before going on a ride. And this time was the same. We split into two groups of 4; Mycroft, john, myself and Simon (we had to blackmail him to split up from his brother for one ride) in one boat and Sherlock, molly, Harry and William in the other. Mycroft and I were not very comfortable with sending the younger ones on the ride on their own but there was no way round it. When I was on the ride, Mycroft's hand kept touching mine because our handles were really close together. Each time this happened my breathe hitched in the back of my throat and caused me to want to kill me body if it reacted to such a small thing. Thank god it didn't.

Molly forced us to go on every group ride before lunchtime as she wanted to ride with both Sherlock and Harry. The 'three musketeers', as I call them, seemed to be having a lot of fun over the course of this holiday which seemed to make our parents happy. It was obvious from the way that Mycroft's parents and mine looked at Sherlock and Molly that they hoped in the future they would get together. Molly is totally obsessed with Sherlock, she talks about him all the time and Sherlock, from what I could tell from what Mycroft told me when he tutored me, felt the same way. Sherlock at times does seem a little… weird at times, I.e. his fascination for experiments and the way he drags my sister around doing them, but overall he seems like a good kid who came out of his shell when he was around my little sister.

After we had lunch (a mixture of sandwiches, burgers, chips and milkshakes- I am going to be so fat after this holiday and my coach might possible kill me when we get back), we went on Brain Wash, "A mind-altering trip down a 53-foot vertical drop into a domed funnel." It looked like everything I would love but everything Mycroft would hate. Mycroft however was becoming better at coping with his nerves due to the sheer amount of rides that he had gone on over the past few days. The ride was amazing, although from the queasy look on Mycroft's face it seemed that he didn't feel the same way that I did. I told everyone that we were going to have a break for a minute so we headed back to the beach to meet our parents.

All of a sudden I was dragged into the water in front of the beach by Simon and William. Those boys were surprisingly strong for their age! I was submerged into the water and held down for a few seconds before I managed to overpower them so that I could catch a breath. This time I did not let the two boys pull me under. I stood in the water which was now up to my shoulders, spluttering and coughing, while Mycroft came running out to me, quickly grabbing hold of me and dragging me back to the beach. My parents placed a towel around me as Mr and Mrs Watson shouted at the boys. Our day out was cut short because of the incident and we arrived back at the villa before 4 o clock. Mycroft was very nice throughout the whole journey making sure I was ok every 5 minutes or so. It was very strange behaviour especially for him.

The twins were made to say sorry to me and the rest of the house because they 'ruined' our day. I assured them that it was just a prank gone wrong but they should never do anything like that again. The parents ordered in pizza and chips (seriously, I am going to have put on 10 stones by the time I get back) and we went to bed straight afterwards. It was a very tiring and scary day for everyone.

Day 6: 22/12: Simon and John

As Greg is the oldest, it was meant to be his job to write today's entry but because of what we did yesterday we have to write it instead. It was pure luck that mum let us go to the theme park after what we did yesterday so we didn't argue with her.  
Today we went to Universal Studios again. Sherlock, Molly, Harry and John went on all the bigger rides while we went to the kids land. However we did go on the Simpson ride with them. Mycroft and Greg went to the city walk part of the theme park.  
We later found out that Sherlock, Molly, Harry and John went on: E.T. the ride, Men in Black, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, Shrek 4D and were joined by Greg and Mycroft to go on The Incredible Hulk. Apparently Greg and Mycroft had a good time just talking and eating and drinking while they were away from us.

Kid land was very fun. There were many smaller rides which were very good. We spent a lot of time running around and having fun while Mum, Mrs Holmes and Baroness Hooper watched us, probably making sure that we didn't get into any more trouble.  
That night we had fish and chips (they were not as good as English fish and Chips but they were better than Dad's cooking). We had to go to bed early as a form of punishment for what we did to Greg.


	9. The Holiday -Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the families spend Christmas Week...

23/12- 29/12

After the busy week that they had just experienced, everyone concluded that it would be right to have the next week off not only to relax, but because it was only a few days before Christmas. Greg and Mycroft decided that on the 23rd, they would go shopping for presents and because most of the children had not even started to buy Christmas presents, they were also forced into taking them as well.

They elected to go to Florida Keys Outlet Centre, a shopping center in which there are many designer clothes shops where they can buy cute presents for one another. They have a slight lie in, waking up at nine o clock and meeting downstairs at nine thirty. Greg drove the car on the way to the shopping center, being careful as he drove because he was driving a rented car and there were children in the car as well. They didn’t need to be in a traffic accident days before Christmas.

Greg had been ordered by his parents, that he was not to let the other children wander off on their own so they went into all the shops together, only walking away from the group if someone had to buy something as a presents for someone who was with them. However they did not go into many shops (Aeropostale, Calvin Klein, Claire’s, Sunglass Hut and Toys R Us), as there were not a great variety of shops there. 

Mycroft ended up Googling shopping centers in Florida due to the lack of presents that they had bought in the Florida Keys Outlet Centre. He found a shopping center, which was not too far away from where they already were, and he took over driving from Greg.

Orlando Premium Outlets- Vineland Avenue had a bigger variety of shops and they all managed to find all the presents that they needed to buy. Mycroft even treated everyone to lunch at a nice little café, which was located inside the shopping center.

Once the majority of the presents had been bought, they all went home, utterly exhausted after all the dashing around that had occurred that day due to the stress of Christmas shopping merely days before the event.

Christmas Eve:

Christmas eve started off the same way that every other day started. Everyone woke up and gathered, one by one, around the dining room table, grabbing food as they made their way. After breakfast some of them got ready while others migrated towards the pool. 

The twins, Sherlock, Molly, Harry and John (who had managed to make good friends with Sherlock and was happily excepted into their little friendship group) spent most of the day in the pool splashing each other or having competitions as to who could hold their breath the longest underwater (of course Sherlock won every time as he had conducted an experiment once about how long the average human could hold their breath underwater). 

All the parents were doing multiple tasks throughout the day as they had a lot to prepare for such as wrapping presents and preparing dinner but they were perfectly happy with the fact that they were unable to spend the whole day relaxing because their children were having so much fun.

That morning, Greg had been sent the unfortunate task of helping to collect the Christmas tree with Mr. Holmes and Mycroft. He was not particularly looking forward to the day as it was going to be spent mostly travelling or lugging a giant tree into a car but he was able to cope because Mr. Holmes and Mycroft would be pleasant company throughout the journey.

They left quite late but because of this, traffic was minimal and it took them an hour to get to the giant warehouse where many packed up Christmas trees were being kept. However it took them some time to find the right tree due to them wanting to get the perfect tree. Eventually after a lot of disagreeing and measuring, they decide on a tree and loaded the tree into the car.

When they arrive home, all the children piled into the house to see the tree being sent up right in the corner of the living room, although due to its size, it did take up quite a lot of space on the room. Once the tree was up and lights had successfully been put on the tree, the children started to decorate it with matching decorations which had been picked out yesterday by the mothers.

“Harry that tinsel simply does not go with the rest of the decorations.” Sherlock stated, grabbing the tinsel from Harry and throwing it across the room.

“Yes it does. You don’t know anything about decorating trees so how would you know.”

“Well actually I conducted an experiment into why different colors go better with others so actually I think that I am the expert in this area.”

Before the little argument between friends turned into a heated catfight, they were quickly separated and set on doing different activities that they were doing previously.

\---------------------------------

Before they were sent to get ready for bed, everyone had a nice home cooked meal together and then Mr. and Mrs. Holmes brought a present down for each child. 

“It is kind of a tradition in our family that everyone gets a single present on Christmas Eve.” Mrs. Holmes stated passing the presents to each child. All the presents were equal in size and weight, all wrapped in the same wrapping paper as well.

However each parcel contained something similar but still slightly different.

New pajamas for each child.

Mrs. Holmes stood up as they all opened their present and smiled at them. “I think it is nice to feel all nice and warm in a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve. It makes you sleep better as well.”

All the children expressed their thanks before they were ushered upstairs to get into their new nightclothes and then told to get into bed. Lights out, however, was not immediately implicated so some of the children talked for about 30 minutes and one by one they fell into a very deep sleep.

Christmas Day- 25/12

“Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up!!!!!!!!”

For fuck sake Mycroft thought as the screams of children nearly burst his eardrums and eventually a body began tugging at his duvet.

“Come on, Myc. Its our first proper Christmas with all our friends!” A voice sulked right next to his ear.

“Why did you have to wake me up like this? You are old enough to know how behave responsibly and normally for someone of your age and intelligence so don’t act so child like. I thought you didn’t like Christmas anyway?”

“Well I don’t but… Molly said we could do Christmas experiments and she said she had bought me something that she thought I would like for an experiment. I just have to deduce what it is before I open it and I can have it.”

“Ah. So this is all because of an experiment?“

“Exactly. Don’t make me repeat myself.“

“Bring me tea and I will wake up and be down 10 minutes afterwards. Is that alright for you?”

Sherlock pounced off the bed and legged it out of the room as fast as he could. Mycroft’s head hit the pillow as soon as they were gone. He glanced a look at the alarm clock, although he regretted the decision as soon as he saw the time. 6:15

Oh fuck. This was going to be a very long day.

Slightly later than planned (and promised), Mycroft made his way down the stairs to see Greg grabbing hold of Molly and tipping the smaller girl so that she was dangling by her legs, giggling between fits of screams.

Mycroft stifled a laugh when he saw Sherlock’s bundle of curly hair move up and down as he laughed, real, entertained chuckles. Greg placed Molly down on the floor but not before he tried to smother her in kisses.

“Get…. Off… Me…. Greg. I… am. Too… old… for… you. To… be humiliating… me like…. This. Especially… in front of…. My best friends.”

Now that was a funny sight.

They all managed to compose themselves when John brought in come hot drinks and toast for them all. But the fun and laughter still continued because the twins came bursting into the room. Giving the twins hot chocolate with sugar in only made it worst.

Their parents must have been thoroughly shocked/amused when they walked into the sitting room. Sherlock, Molly and Harry were dancing to the music which was being played on someone‘s iPhone (much to Mycroft’s disapproval), the twins were stuffing chocolate into their mouths at a very alarming rate, John and Greg were having a coffee drinking competition while Mycroft was trying to stop the situation from getting out of control.

Consequently, the parents regained control of the situation, quickly. Very quickly. They all eat a healthy breakfast before they went to get ready.

First on the Christmas day plan was a walk. Normally the Watson family would go to church but because the other families were not doing so (and because they were unable to find an appropriate church) they decided not to do so. Baroness Hooper stayed at the house to finish off the preparations for Christmas dinner. Although Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Holmes did offer to stay behind and help and when that was declined they offered to stay behind just to keep her company but that was declined as well. 

They all arrived back at the house an hour and a half later, much calmer and slightly tired however the promise of presents and a good Christmas dinner did manage keep them awake. Each person placed themselves at the place in which their name label was just as the food was being brought out in separate dishes and put onto a large hot plate which was positioned on the center of the table.

After all the food had been placed on the table and all the plates were given out, they said a quick grace before they started to serve the food onto the plates. 

The dinner was extremely delicious, every single scrap of it, forcing everyone around the table to have more than they thought that their stomachs could handle. Everyone helped to clear up the table because until it had been done, they would not be able to open their presents.

Settling around the Christmas tree on the comfy sofa, a beanbag, a small stool or the floor, each person nervously awaited the arrival of all the presents.

Molly, Harry and Sherlock acted as Santa’s little helpers, handing out the presents so that each person had a little pile of presents in front of them. Sherlock was well behaved, for once, not even complaining that he was doing all the work (for once) and instead getting on with the job in hand. The reason why was simple and everyone knew it, even if he was completely oblivious to the matter. (Cough*Molly*cough.)

Sherlock, Molly and Harry did a wonderful job of handing out the presents, being careful incase a present was fragile or precious. As the age of the person increased, the less presents they had but this did not matter. This day was for the children more than anything else.

With the amount of presents that had been bought, it was not an option for them to open a present at a time allowing everyone to watch as this was done. So, everyone opened at present all at the same time, giving time in-between for thanks and discussion of the present.

Each present was received with gratitude and many were shocked by how much thought had been put into the present buying. Mycroft was particularly pleased with Sherlock’s reaction to each present, as each one was perfect beyond belief for his little brother.

Once the majority of the presents had been opened, the parents started to open theirs as well, smiling at each other and even crying when they received an amazing present.

Everyone was delighted with his or her presents. Possibly a little bit stunned by the amount of money that was spent on them. But still delighted. They spent the rest of the evening entertaining themselves with their presents before being handed a hot of chocolate each and falling asleep in front of the fire.

Boxing day:

To everyone’s shock they woke up in their own room, surrounded by most of their presents and wrapped up in their duvet still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

Walking downstairs, because no one seemed to be upstairs, he started to hear some movement although it was not clear who it was. Mycroft slept in after spending a good amount of time the night before either convincing Gregory that his present didn't cost him too much money and that he couldn't take then back to the shop because he bought them ages ago or he was thinking about the amount of thought that Gregory must have done to come up with such an amazing gift.

He rarely mentioned any hobbies except for playing the piano, cello, viola and saxophone, reading lots of books and going to the library to educate his mind before he died of boredom but these did not really count as hobbies as he was made to play them and only carried on playing them because it calmed him down by speeding up his thought processes for a few moments while he played. So it was quite unbelievable for him to think that Gregory even remembered him saying that he liked pandas. He put his new pair of panda converse on his feet while he sat on the top step of the grand stairs, before he went down them.

When he walked into the living room he found Molly and Sherlock sitting on the sofa reading a book the size of an encyclopedia, John, Greg, his father, Mr. Watson, baron Hooper an the twins watching a football match on the TV and the mothers of the house cooking food in the kitchen while talking. None of things that they were doing appealed to Mycroft so he simply sat at the table and read the newspaper.

Sherlock however was having an amazing time reading '1000 facts about everything and anything' that Molly had bought him for Christmas. What made it better was the fact that the person who bought it for him was reading it with him, her petit body pressing against his an providing him with much needed heat as he was only wearing a blue wrap around dressing gown and some pants.

For once Sherlock was enjoying the Christmas period, an event that was not celebrated to such an extent that it was being celebrated while they were in America. He had received presents which were useful in either his school life or for his further studies outside of school, helping him to change his opinion on Christmas. He realized that it was not an excuse to buy each other pathetic presents and to drink a copious amount of alcohol but was in fact a time to just relax and forget about normal life, something which both him and his parents struggled to do. 

For Sherlock there were too many new experiments to do or a pile up of chemistry homework to do and that tended to take up most of the space in his mind palace despite his effects to clear his palace out a bit once in a while. The first time he was able to do this was while he was on holiday.

After they had all eaten breakfast everyone was left to their own devices as this week was all about relaxing much to Mycroft and Sherlock’s dismay.

Sherlock ha been forced into a day of relaxation, it made Sherlock cringe just at the thought of doing such an unnecessary, BORING task but what Molly and Harry wanted, Sherlock also had to do. Sometimes he simply thought about the amount of control that they had over him; it was quite astonishing. However when he thought about the amount of times that he had managed to convince Harry to do something that would get them in trouble, he found that he was able to rest easily as they all seemed to have the same control over one another.

For Mycroft however, he found it quite surprising that his brother had managed to make such food friends. He was unable to make friends all though his school life but he put this down to his superior intelligence to Sherlock.

After 3 hours of complaints of how bored Sherlock was just lying outside in the sunshine (he had managed to finish all the books which he had revived yesterday despite only having 12 hours to read them in), the parents arranged a little surprise for them.

A water polo tournament.

Mycroft's worst nightmare.

Not only did the game involve gets hot and flustered in front of people, but it also meant that he would have to take his t shirt off, something which he had managed to avoid so far this holiday.

All the other children practically leapt into the pool at the idea of the game (Sherlock more gracefully than others even though he was pretty excited), ripping any unnecessary clothing of in the process. 

Of course the fact that Mycroft had not some the same caused an argument between the mother and son but it was quickly resolved when Sherlock and the twins jumped out of the pool and pushed Mycroft in before he could argue some more.

The look on Mycroft's face was priceless.

If someone had manage to take photos of his face as he jumped into the pool and afterwards, they would be able to blackmail the boy and would receive anything they asked for just to stop the photos being used to their advantages. 

Mycroft, John, Molly, Simon, Mrs. Watson, Mr. Holmes and baron Hooper were on one team.

Greg, Sherlock, Harry, William, baroness Hooper, Mrs. Holmes and Mr. Watson were on the other team.

Once the team talks had taken place, the game commenced with Greg's team throwing the ball first as they had won the coin toss. As they did not have a referee, at first it was hard to keep a track of what was happening, although they got better at doing this as the game went on.

The teams were quite evenly matched, causing the score to be quite equal most of the way through. By half time (after 30 minutes of playing), everyone was quite tired and the score was pretty even 4:3 to Greg's team but that was only because Greg was an amazing goalkeeper.

They had a quite break, drinking some squash and having a few biscuits before thy continued. During the second half, the twins became the commentators, not really taking part in the actual game but reporting on each player’s every move.

Throughout the game one could hear shouts of "at the moment Sherlock is in the middle of a heard of girls fighting for each ones attention" or "John is standing the water taking a piss". Some of the comments were highly inappropriate but Boone was really taking notice of them because the contest was getting serious.

It was in the last minute that things really got interesting. The score was 7:7 and both teams were desperate to win. Greg's team was physically stronger but Mycroft’s team was more agile. 

Due to their agility, Mycroft’s team had the ball and was moving at great speed towards their goal. Towards Greg. Sherlock passed the ball to Mycroft. Mycroft jumped up in the air to try to get the ball over Greg and into the goal. Bang.

Heads collided. One giant head-butt and their final chance to score was lost. But they had nearly lost a few teeth in the process.

Blood tickled from the teeth marks that were imprinted into Mycroft’s forehead. Harry was holding her eye where a lovely black bruise would form a few days later.

However they all laughed about it over dinner that night despite the dressing that was now taped to Mycroft’s forehead and the pack of peas that Harry was holding to her swollen eye.

It was a fun day, despite the near disaster. And most importantly it had kept Sherlock from getting bored and causing havoc. Just to top it off, it exhausted everyone so it was a silent house by 10 o clock that night.

27/12-29/12

Over the next two days, all three of the families got into a healthy routine of waking up by 8, having breakfast by 9 and making their way to the pool by 10. They would then spend the next 4 hours relaxing before having a light lunch.

Afterwards the children would get bored, either deciding to go inside and go on their laptops for a bit or bothering the parents for the next few hours. They all went out for dinner at 7 o clock on both nights, having a large dinner and many glasses of wine before heading back to the villa. 

By the 29th Mycroft and Harry were pretty much fully healed except for the small teeth marks on Mycroft’s face and a slight black shadow underneath Harry’s eye which was often covered up by makeup anyway. 

However the relaxing could not continue while Sherlock was around….


	10. The Holiday- Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The New Year comes in with a kiss...

31/12- New Year’s Eve 

All around them, the streets were filled with noise rendering all their senses useless due to the overwhelming strength of it. At 7 o’clock, all the parents had gathered in the front room of the villa to tell the children that they would not be allowed to spend one of the most important days of the year in front of the computer or television but instead had to enjoy being a child while they still could. And on that note they were practically dragged out of the villa, placed into the car and driven to a very secluded Italian that no one had seen during their time in America.

Once they had been seated at a table (the restaurant was busy with families celebrating the New Year early but after Mr Holmes had whispered into the waiter’s ear, they managed to be seated in an additional room that catered for them perfectly) they all looked at the menu and promptly ordered.

As with most of the food that restaurants that accommodated for tourists that travelled to America, the portions were extremely large, rendering every person at the table unable to finish their meal however they all delighted at the taste of the dishes. Therefore when they prepared to leave, the waiter was left a hefty tip as thanks for the wonderful meal and service that had been provided to them. 

Then they headed to Bayfront Park by car, where a New Year’s Eve party was being held allowing familes to come and celebrate the New Year. When they reached the park, the fathers went to get some drinks for everyone while the children and mothers found a nice spot to watch the action unfold as there was meant to be a spectacular firework display as midnight struck.

By the time the fathers got back, Greg was dancing with Molly, showing how one was meant to dance formally while the other children were dancing randomly around them. Meanwhile the mothers were sat down watching the children and trying to encourage Mycroft to get up and dance with them. However due to Mycroft’s stubbornness and his determination not to act like child for once in his life, this was not going very well for the mothers.

However after an hour and a half of jokes, drinking, dancing to some legendary songs and messing about, things started to heat up a bit when Mr Holmes stopped too men kissing in front of them.

“Ehm.. excuse me. I was just wondering if you wouldn’t mind doing that somewhere else. I don’t really want my children to be witnessing this.” Mr Holmes asked, crossing his hands over his chest as he walked closer to the particular couple in question.

“Well… sir… I am sorry but we can do whatever we like. We are only kissing. I bet you that when the New year comes in you will be kissing your wife,” Mrs Holmes started to blush a dark red colour as the man continued, “so why cant we?”

“Well firstly you have no right to talk about what my wife and I will, or will not be doing at midnight. It is frankly, none of your business. And secondly it’s because it is not natural, two men together… kissing… doing whatever you do together. It is just not right.”

“Well that’s your opinion but we are not going to let you ruin our night just because you have such ridiculous opinions.”

“It is thanks to people like you that my son thinks that he… he…” Mr Holmes took a pause, cleared his throat and continued, “my son believes that he is homosexual because people of your kind have manipulated him into thinking that it is right to love someone of the same gender when it isn’t AT ALL.”

Mycroft froze still when he heard his father’s declaration. He wished that someone would just take him away from all of this… all of this crap that just kept coming up despite all his hard attempts at trying to act… normal, well as normal as possible when one is a teenager.

“Well good for him. Sir, he is allowed to love whoever he wants no matter what you think. And it’s not anyone’s fault that he feels that way. It is perfectly normal for him to be feeling this way. I have been doing so for… 10 years now and I am a highly successful businessman who earns more than the average American man. Thinking this way has done me no harm at all so you should use me as proof that your son will be fine.” The other man said smiling at Mycroft every so often because it was obvious that he was the son that Mr Holmes was talking about due to the deep shade of red that was now covering his face and the fact that he was now standing quite close to his father.

“You… little shirtlifter have no right to stand their practically saying that I am a bad father because I don’t think that it is right to have feelings for a man because it’s not. What was the point of God putting Man on earth when Man was just going to fuck each other? Yeah you see, there is no point and that’s why he put women on earth as well so that the human race can grow. ” Everyone’s breath caught as they heard the cure come out of Mr Holmes mouth and the curse also caused a lot of people to turn and look at all the commotion.

“Come on Percy. I think we should go and cool down don’t you think… shh… we need to talk. NOW.” Baron Hooper practically shouted when Percival tried to interrupt.

“No. No. No. I am not going to let you tell me that this is right. That being… That loving a man is right because it’s not, no matter how many times you tell me that. What is going to happen to my son when he gets older? Hm? He will never get anywhere in life, that’s what will happen. And that’s because of all his twisted thoughts that go through his mind.”

“Twisted. You think that I am twisted. That your own son is twisted? Well maybe you should look at yourself father because personally I think that your opinions are twisted. Loads of people at my school are gay and they are perfectly normal and perfectly happy. If nobody told you that they were, you would never know and you would treat them like any other person. When everyone found out that I was gay, yes there were a few people who shouted at me in the corridors but after a week all the excitement calmed down. But it’s obvious with you that the calmness will never calm down. Never. And that’s because you are a bigot who will always put his career and money before his son.” And with that Mycroft started to run away. Run away from his bigot father. Away from his mother who never told him that she loved him. Away from is brother who he adored. But most importantly away from the one boy who he had liked, not because he needed someone to experiment with but because he had a fondness in his heart that would never go away, despite how hard he tried.

The silence that he needed was drawing closer as he walked away from all the celebrations. Closer to comfort. Closer to peace.

He sat there for a moment, simply letting the silence fill his body, incasing him in a protected bubble that would be only for him. 

Wrapping his arms around his body, protecting him further from any damage that could destroy him any further.

The smell of fireworks filling the air, turning the show into a multi-sensory experience that never leaved him however far away he got away from it.

He didn’t need to witness all the love that was displayed to the world as the new year began. Different kinds of love: storge, philia, eros and agape, all the different kinds of love that he did not have. That he wished he had.

But it was broken. Abruptly. Noisily. Painfully.

He made sure as he ran to his hiding place that no one followed him but he knew deep down that he would find him soon enough. He was just too good at knowing where he would go.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” The words were spat out of Mycroft’s mouth like they were burning his tongue. His silent moment was ruined, and when a Holmes was disrupted it made them mad. Really mad. “I just need a moment on my own. For once I need a moment where I don’t have to pretend. Pretend to be this perfect member of the family. Perfect brother. Perfect son. Perfect everything. Because I am not. I really am not. I am just a messed up teenager who can’t get anything right.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” Greg’s voice swept over him as he moved closer towards him. He smelt like sweat. Probably from all the running. He sat there panting for a moment as he caught his breathe, breathing in for 5 counts and out for 2. “You’re bloody fast, you know that right? You should try out for the football team. You would be an amazing midfielder.”

“You know as well as I do Gregory that football is not my thing and it never will be.”

“I had to try.” Greg was silent for a moment, still not breathing normally but it was slowly getting that way again, “about what your dad said-“

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want your sympathy for what my pathetic father said back there.”

“Well your going to get it. I’m sorry that your dad has such stupid opinions. I’m sorry that I didn’t really understand why you were hiding from me, from everyone but especially from yourself. The thing is, when I told my dad that I was gay, nothing big happened. At first he was a bit shocked cus I am into football and he had heard so many stereotypes about gay people being all camp and stuff when I am like…. the total opposite. Of course I knew what happened down at your house last year but I didn’t really understand that parents could be that cruel cus they are meant to love you no matter what, well at least that’s what I thought but obviously that not always the case. So I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing for you to be sorry about. It is not your fault that my parents aren’t as excepting as yours.”

“Firstly, yes I am sorry because I didn’t understand that, although you liked me, you didn’t want to be with me because of your parents and I should have really thought about you instead of thinking about what I wanted all the time. And secondly your parents aren’t bigots, only your dad. Your mum kinda… stood up to him after you left. Demanded that he go find you and apologize. My dad said he would have a word with your dad though, try and calm him down and help him out with how he is feeling.”

“My Mother… she… doesn’t mind.”

“Of course not, you idiot. She loves you. I suppose…. she was just… scared of your father. He is rather scary and I am taller than him so I can’t imagine how she feels.”

Mycroft smiled for the first time in an hour and he let the relief wash over him for a minute. At least one of my parents supports me he thought. Nothing was said for at least 5 minutes as Mycroft let himself slip into his mind mansion so that he could try and understand and then file everything that was going on around him while Greg slipped into the easy silence that surrounded him.

“Thank you for following me. As much as I didn’t want to be followed, I am happy that you did so.” His hand hovering over Greg’s thigh as he spoke, wondering if it would be acceptable for him to place it there or if it would be better for him to touch his shoulder. Probably a less awkward but a little less personal.

“You can touch me you know” Greg whispered as though he heard every word that went through Mycroft’s mind and he grabbed Mycroft’s hand and placed it on his own thigh, guiding it up and down his leg in a soothing pattern, “just because I said I understand why you don’t want anything to happen between us doesn’t mean that I don’t want anything to happen between us.”

“You… you… you want to.” Repeating himself for what he believed to be the first time in his life.

“Yes. Are you always this thick because otherwise I am going to fail my GCSE’s thanks to you?” He cheekily asked smiling at Mycroft as he did so.

“Well Gregory I would like to inform you that no, I am not “thick” just slightly… slightly-“

“Aroused”

“Yes. That. It is making it hard for me to think properly.”

“So maybe I should just kiss you. That’s bound to relieve some of that tension?”

Mycroft stopped breathing for a moment, shocked at what had just come out of Greg’s mouth before he let one little word slip out of his mouth so effortlessly without a single moment of thought because he didn’t want to let his brain overrule his heart.

“Yes”

That word was met with silence, like the world had stopped despite the fact that it was one of the noisiest and busiest times of the year. But as Mycroft felt the warm hand that was on top of his, grab hold of his hand into a firm grip and another hand tenderly began to touch his face moving closer towards his jaw, he knew that he would never be able to let go of the boy… man who was sitting in front of him because he had been the only one to make him feel better in such a hard time.

When Mycroft would later come to speak about this moment, he would explain that it was like a moment from a soppy romantic book for women who needed excitement in their lives. However he would never admit that it was the perfect moment for them, not only because it forced them to act on their feelings, but because it added to the raw bitterness of the feeling that made him realize his true feelings.

Rough lips touched soft ones. 

A cold hand joined another hand to hold a warm face in place. 

Then a hand moved position and held onto a tuft of ginger hair. 

Fast beating hearts drowned out all of the fireworks going off. 

Moans were released as the electrifying touch of a tongue slid across a lower lip. And once the tongue was allowed access into the unknown kingdom, two people fell in love who were not meant to do so, but couldn’t help what they felt because this type of love overcomes everything that tries to stop it no matter how strong or how powerful.

When the lips finally parted and air was able to fill their fatigued lungs, both minds filled with the endless possibilities that that kiss could lead to in the future but they were forced to live in the moment when Greg’s phone briefly went off before it was denied.

“Listen, if you need time, I can get you time because I think you need time to sort you shit out before you go back there and I know that I have just made it 100 times worst-“

“No you haven’t. Not at all. If anything you have made it better. More clearer. You have made me realize everything that I needed to know” And before Greg could interrupt, Mycroft placed his lips briefly on Greg’s again before standing up and grabbing Greg’s hands, pulling up as he started to run away from his calmness and back towards his terrors.

3/01

“ Kids. Come on. The food is now sitting on the table waiting to be eaten.”

“Mother I don’t really think that the food wants to be eaten because personally if I was a cheese cracker one of my thoughts as I lay on a table would be ‘please come over here and eat me before I go horrible and dry.” Sherlock scowled, picking up a cheese cracker as he passed the table and headed towards the coffee table that had magazine after magazine sprawled all over it.

“You do realize that although you made an excellent point about the food not wanting to be eaten, I don’t think that food can one, talk or two, think.” John finished as he piled food onto a paper plate and followed Sherlock into the lounge.

“Well you never know. There are experiments going on right this second about objects and animals being able to talk to one another. It’s actually quite fascinating.”

“Actually Sherlock I have decided that I don’t want to get into another discussion about experiments especially after we talked about what would happen if play dough was put into gravy and then heated and then the next day I find you doing precisely that, but in the process nearly killing us.”

“But that was just a mistake. How was I to know that the hob for the oven in the villa was much hotter than the one at home and therefore when I turned the heat up slightly, the whole experiment would be ruined,”

“The experiment was ruined. What about the state of the bloody pan after your experiment went wrong or the fact that my mother nearly killed me because you left it with me after it went wrong?” John continued.

“Now now boys. There is no need for you two to be arguing. If I hear you arguing one more time I will bang your heads together,” Mrs Watson shouted from the kitchen while she tried to put some food on two plates for the twins.

Over the past few days, thanks to Baron Hooper and Mrs Holmes, Mycroft and Mr Holmes had finally began to start talking to one another again. Whilst Mycroft was away with Greg, Mr Holmes and Baron Hooper talked firstly about when Greg had come out to him (which Mr Holmes had been shocked to find out) and then about how Mr Holmes felt when he found Mycroft on the sofa with a boy. 

Eventually Mr Holmes realized that it was Mycroft’s life and he had to live it how he wanted to live it not how his father wanted him to do so. Baron Hooper had also managed to show Mr Holmes that being gay would not make it harder for Mycroft to become a successful young man and that did help to convince him that this didn’t have to be a bad thing. However, despite the progress that had been made that evening Mr Holmes was still uneasy about the whole matter although he was willing to try and be a bit more understanding about his son’s situation which made a change to the normal attitude that he had.

Mycroft and Greg had decided that they would try and continue their relationship behind closed doors, firstly because things were still not 100% between Mycroft and his father and secondly because Greg wanted to keep his private life away from his life on the field while he still could. However how lo could both parties live with this secret….

 

Note-   
storge: love between family members  
eros: romantic love  
philia: friendship  
agape: unconditional love

*while Sherlock has his mind palace, Mycroft has his mind mansion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks goes to totheverybestoftimejw for commenting on this story and for all the kudos that people have left me :)
> 
> I am aware that there is a lot of mistakes on these chapters but I do not have a beta and I have limited time to double and triple check my work. If anyone would like to beta my work it would be greatly appreciated. Just leave a comment saying that you are interested or PM me on fanfiction.net (same username as on ao3).


	11. Three Times Sherlock gets the Sex Talk

(i)

Sherlock arrived early to his music lesson, adjusting the strap of his violin case against the back of his seat before settling down in his seat. Only a few people in his year opted to take music so he often had to wait a while before anyone else came in.

He started to wipe the smudges off of the grey fabric of his violin case, having little effect on them but still trying to do it nevertheless.

He looked up from what he was doing when his teacher walked in. He told them to go up to the lecture theatre because their year was having a presentation.

They never had a presentation.

But Sherlock followed, taking his precious violin case with him as he had become accustomed to never letting it out of his sight. Over the past 6 years it had become like an extra limb to him- reminding him that no matter what, he always had music to keep him company.

He walked into the hall, hearing the muttered “freak” as he walked past the ‘popular bench’ specifically for the boys in the football team. He was used to their teasing by now, having to listen to it first when he was in primary school and more recently when he joined the local private school.

Sherlock finally reached the usual spot where he sat with Molly and Harry, placing his violin under his seat so that he could prop his feat along the edge. The first thing he noticed was that there were no girls in the room. Maybe they were late? No, they couldn’t be late, not every single girl in his year.

5 minutes later and he was none the wiser. He tried deducing everything in the room so that he could understand what was happening but everything was so blank, so plain. He went through everything that Mycroft taught him.

 Observe- don’t overlook the smaller things as they could tell you more about the situation than the bigger ones. Intuition- trust it no matter what because it is always right. Listen- understand that the things that aren’t mentioned in the conversation may be the things that tell you what is happening. Facts- evidence will help to support your theory.

But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing and that annoyed him, annoyed him more than he would care to admit as he could ALWAYS deduce a situation. But this time he couldn’t.

“Now boys, you might all be wondering what you are doing here but anyone who has an older brother will probably know exactly what is happening.” Mr Harris, the head teacher, announced.

Yes, Sherlock had an older brother but he had no idea what on earth was going on. His brother had never told him about the presentation that happened in year 8.

“Now this is Nurse Adams and he is going to talk about the changes that are happening to your body and give you a brief summary about sexual health.”

_Oh God..._ Sherlock remembered that once, at his junior school, they had a small talk about puberty. All he remembered was his teacher (a rather old, smelly man) saying that they their bodies were changing so that had to use deodorant... he wasn’t really sure if the teacher was trained to give the talk because it was so bad.

“Now, I know that you may find talking about this subject awkward but it is really necessary to talk about these things. Firstly we are going to cover puberty. Does anyone know what puberty is?” Nurse Adams asked the students, unaware that he was talking to them like they were babies when they were in fact 12 and 13 year olds. It looked like it was not only annoying Sherlock, but most of the boys in his year as they were either sniggering or falling asleep.

After briefly thinking about what to do, Sherlock decided not to fully listen to the conversation as he had much better things to do with his time. Although in the back of his head, he kept a log of what the nurse was saying, filing away the information as he thought that it may be useful for him in the future.

He thought back to the experiment that he started last night. The experiment was very complicated for someone of his age to complete but Sherlock was used to doing things that people his age weren’t meant to do. He kept thinking about a prediction for the experiment but concluding that the results may vary. However his mind kept focusing on some of the words that the nurse was saying...

_Rapid Growth_

_Self Conscious_

_Aggressive_

_Risky Behaviour: Smoking, Drinking, Sex_

_Voice Breaking_

_Sweat_

_Increase in hair growth_

_Shaving_

_Muscle growth_

_Increase in genital size_

For his age, Sherlock was small but when he was younger, he was average height, not really tall for his age but at the same time not small. However when he reached 12, some of the girls were taller than he was and now that he was 13, all the girls were taller than him and some of the boys were towering over him.

It was obvious that he was a late bloomer (well that’s what his aunt said) because his parents weren’t small so his theoretically he should be tall. As well, when changing for sports, Sherlock heard most of the boys talking about their rapid muscle growth but Sherlock really didn’t have any obvious muscle growth. He wasn’t a very vain person but he felt conscious of his lack of growth. _Was he a freak like the other boys said..._

When the nurse managed to capture Sherlock’s attention again, he was doing a question and answer session. Most of the questions were very typical.

_Why do I get an erection?_

_Why had my voice gone weird?_

_When will these changes happen to me?_

_Do I think about Girls too much?..._

“It is total normal to think about girls during puberty. You feel this way because the hormones in your body are becoming active so you might start to have intense feelings about girls. If it is just one girl that you keep thinking about then you may just have a little crush on her. You either act on it or ask her out or you just let it pass. So, no, you don’t think about girls too much.” Nurse Adams replied, fiddling around with the leaflets were on the table.

In Sherlock’s mind, girls weren’t particularly interesting but at the same time he didn’t really think boys were any better. Girls just ran around laughing and gossiping whilst boys fought and played football. Harry, Molly and John were the only people that didn’t fit into that category but he still wouldn’t say that he found any of them particularly attractive.

Recently Molly and Harry spent most of their time Sherlock’s house, helping with experiments or simply doing homework but John had gradually drifted away. When they first got back from their holiday two years ago, John and Sherlock had spent a lot of time together mostly talking about the Harry Potter book but eventually talking about other subjects that they both enjoyed. However, after a few months John would make excuses as to why he couldn’t come round. Homework. Football practice. Family dinners. And then it came to a stop all together.

When Sherlock asked Mycroft why John wasn’t able to come anymore he just said he was growing up so he wouldn’t want to play with little boys any more.

Just because John didn’t want to hang out with Sherlock didn’t mean that Sherlock didn’t want to hang out with John or that he didn’t like him anymore. Rather the opposite. He would love it if John came round but he had been informed that he couldn’t force people to be his friend...

The next thing that brought Sherlock out of his mind palace was a leaflet being handed to him.

_Growing up._

Sherlock flicked through the small booklet that was specifically made for teenage boys. All in all, the booklet was very good and meant that he didn’t have to retain any of the information that Nurse Adams just gave to them as he could easily read the booklet if he needed any information.

The nurse began talking again but this time about sex.

Even more reason not to listen. He heard enough about that when Mycroft came home with Lestrade. Its best to say that what was heard, was not pleasant.

He used to think that getting Mycroft and Lestrade together would be a good thing, he was wrong. If they weren’t fighting, they were having sex. If they weren’t having sex, they were fighting. It was a never ending cycle. They only came back to the manor in the holiday and only for a couple of days but it was beginning to drive Sherlock insane...

“Now I am going to show you some pictures. Some of you might not like to look at them so if you are squeamish then you might want to turn away.” Nurse Adams announced, hitting a button on the remote control for the projector.

Now, Sherlock wasn’t squeamish at all. He often did post mortems on dead birds or dead squirrels or sometimes even dead rabbits if he was lucky but Sherlock thought that those pictures were horrific enough to induce nightmares in any sane person.

STI’s...

Pictures of sexually transmitted infections...and boys being boys, they all made gagging and vomiting noises making Sherlock realise how stupidly immature his year was. Of course he didn’t think that the pictures were nice or even relatively normal but he would never be as immature as some of the boys in his year.

The moral of the story (well pictures) was to always have regular check-ups with your doctor and to always use a condom. Not the worst advice ever given to a bunch of hormonal teenagers.

Luckily after an hour and a half of sitting in that room and listening to the Nurse go on and on, they were able to escape and have their lunch leaving most of them traumatised for life.

(ii)

The next time that Sherlock came into any situation concerning sex was when he was 13 and a quarter. Mycroft was home from university and he was doing very well. Acing all his tests and handing all his assessments in on time. For once his parents were happy.

He had come home from violin practice early as he had performed all three of his exam pieces to his teacher perfectly therefore ensuring that he could get home sooner than planned. When he arrived home at 7 o’clock, none of the lights in his house were on. His parents weren’t home.

Sherlock turned on some of the lights, slung his coat and his schoolbag in the clock room and placed his violin case on the kitchen counter. He walked over to the fridge, open the door and looked around, trying to find something edible for him to eat. He decided on a plain yogurt because it was not too filling and took the edge off of his hunger.

He then walked through to the living room wanting to watch a documentary that he recorded the previous night. He pressed the light switch on, finding that it was only on a dim setting so he turned the dimmer switch up so he could make his way around the furniture.

But furniture was not the only think that he had to weave his way through. Clothes, all over the floor and a pair of naked bodies lying on sofa.

“Bloody hell.” Sherlock shrieked, turning around as he immediately realised what was happening right in front of him. The bodies were looking around, trying to something to cover themselves up with.

“Shit.” Greg said as he twisted his body around to look at Sherlock once he had managed to cover them both up with a blanket.

Mycroft sat up, looking over Greg’s shoulder to see Sherlock. “Sherlock, go and sit in the kitchen and wait for me.”

Sherlock nodded once before turning around with his yogurt in his hand and returned to the kitchen. While he was walking back he heard a mumbled voice say “At least it wasn’t your parents who walked in on us.”

He waited ten minutes, watching the wind blow the leaves across his lawn and the sun shine down on the lone swing at the end of back garden. His yogurt just sat on the kitchen counter, as alone as the swing was in his back garden. After what he had just witnessed, he didn’t think that he would be able to eat his yogurt without throwing up, let alone his dinner. Sherlock heard muttered voices from the hall, announcing that soon enough his brother would be with him and try to explain what the hell just happened.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft greeted, taking the bar stool next to him. “Are you going to eat that?”

Sherlock looked at his brother briefly before returning his attention to the garden. “No.”

Mycroft picked up the pot and spoon and started to eat it. He finished it in under a minute, standing up to put it in the bed before sitting back down. Silence.

“Are you going to explain what the hell just happened?” Sherlock asked after the silence got too much for him to handle.

“I think you know what you just saw.” Mycroft replied, giving Sherlock his ‘stupid’ look. He sighed before explaining further. “When two people like each other...”

“Yeah I know about that. I don’t need another sex talk especially from you.”

“Are you going to stop being all stroppy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just saw you having sex with your boyfriend on the couch that I have to sit on.”

“And are you interested in boys?”Mycroft suddenly asked.

Sherlock gaped at Mycroft. He wasn’t expecting such an abrupt question from his brother. In all honesty, he had thought about it but he wasn’t really sure. If anything he thought that he could be asexual. Neither girls nor guys interested him. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.” He lied effortlessly. “Why are you asking me about that anyway?”

“I just wanted to know.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I just wanted to make sure that if you were interested on boys, you would be able to get the right information about it so that you don’t get into a... tricky situation.”

“Oh... ok.” Sherlock said as he bit back the panic that was rising through him. He really wasn’t comfortable talking about his sexuality with his brother.

“Exactly.”

Sherlock blinked rapidly in a few seconds of silence before stumbling into a response. “Well I don’t know... but when the nurse came into school to talk to us about... sex, he only explained about a girl and guy doing... _it_. I know the basics but I think that I want... no need to know about it in case anything... happens.”

“Ok.” Mycroft started, fiddling with his mobile which he had just taken out of his trouser pocket. "Well, there’s a good website that you should look at. It tells you all the necessary information and if you have any questions then you can come to me... or Greg if you feel more comfortable talking to him.”

_His brother just said that he could talk to him (or Greg)._

_He actually offered to give him advice without calling him stupid._

_He wanted to help him._

After Sherlock had managed to overcome his shock he remembered that his brother was probably expecting him to reply so he quickly said “Ok”, looked at Mycroft again in disbelief before returning his attention back to the garden.

 Suddenly after minutes of silence, Sherlock asked “Why were you doing it with Greg in the living room?”

Mycroft, who was looking at his phone at the time, turned his attention back to Sherlock. “What do you mean?” he asked, locking his phone so that he could return it back to his pocket.

“After last time, why did you start to... do it in the living room where anyone could walk in... I thought you didn’t want anyone to know about your relationship with Greg.”

Mycroft had to think a bit before replying. He didn’t want his younger brother to hear about his sexual habits. “We don’t. We... just got carried away and before we knew it we were... doing it in the living room.”

Sherlock scoffed once before stating “That’s stupid.”

“How is it _stupid?”_

Sherlock raised his eyebrows at Mycroft. “Don’t you have enough self control to at least manage to get to the bedroom before tearing each others’ clothes off.”

“We have self control—“

“Well obviously you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be _at it_ on the sofa in the living room.” Sherlock interrupted.

“Sherlock, I really don’t want to have this conversation with you. You’re too young and too stupid to understand—“

_Of course he would call him stupid, he always did just because he was older than him and therefore had more time on earth to learn things._

“I am not stupid, Mycroft.”

“You are.”

“Am not.”

“Sherlock, stop arguing and listen. Greg and I are taking the necessary steps to prevent anyone from knowing about us. All I ask is that you delete everything you just saw happen in the living room, alright?”

“But-“

“No buts. Just do what I say.”

Finally Sherlock muttered a quiet “Ok” before getting up of the bar stool and walking up the stairs, to get to his room.

 

(iii)

“Sherlock, what on earth are you doing?” Sherlock’s father asked as he peered into Sherlock’s room while on his way downstairs.

Sherlock looked up from what he was doing, putting everything that he had in his hands down on the desk so that he could show his father what he was _doing._ “I am doing an investigation to see how much semen, well water, can fit into different brands of condoms before bursting. I am also investigating whether using a flavoured or studded condom changes the result.”

 Mr. Holmes looked at Sherlock in shock, trying to understand several things at once. “Sherlock, where did you get those from?”

He sighed once before returning his attention to his experiment. “Some of them were in the top drawer of Mycroft’s bedside table. The rest I bought online using Mycroft’s credit card.”

“I told you not to use Mycroft’s card again.”Mr. Holmes complained.

Sherlock glanced at his father as he said “I know father but this is important.”

“And why is it so important that you can’t use your own money to buy the... condoms.”Mr. Holmes asked, hesitating on the last word as he didn’t expect to ever be having this conversation with his youngest son. Mycroft, possibly but Sherlock? Never.

It’s not that Mr Holmes thought that his youngest son was unattractive, no quite the opposite but Sherlock did not have the best social skills in order to get a girl to like him, unlike Mycroft. When Mycroft wanted to, he could really be very persuasive.

“Well... I couldn’t be bothered to get my debit card from my wallet that’s in my coat pocket downstairs. It was much easier to use Mycroft’s card that was in my sock drawer.” Sherlock replied, taking the wrapper between his teeth and using them to tear it open.

“Uhm...ok, and why was Mycroft’s credit card in your sock drawer?”

Sherlock took the condom, which had been taken out of its wrapper and started to fill it with water. “Because I used it a few days ago to buy some lubricant so that I could see which lubricant, when spread over a smooth surface, makes a human’s feet slide over it the easiest.”

His father looked even more shocked, if that was even possible.

“God... I think I need to talk to your mother about this.”Mr Holmes replied quickly, closing the bedroom door and continuing to go back down the stairs.

-*****-

Mrs Homes, after hours of wondering about his youngest son, she managed to choose the one time when they were together as a family to have a proper talk about his recent behaviour. She was worried about what her husband told earlier that day but Sherlock was taking the right precautions, if he wished to part take in... sexual relations then she really needed to stop being overprotective. He was a little bit young to be thinking about that though... he had only just turned 15...

“Darling, your father told me about your experiment. The one involving...”

“The condoms.” Sherlock filled in.

Mrs Homes sighed before continuing “Yes, the condoms and well... I just wondered why you would be needing to do that kind of experiment.”

Sherlock put down the knife and fork that he was using to mush all his food up as he did not wish to eat while conducting his experiment. “Well... I just did it because it said online that when the time was right you needed to find the right condom for you so I thought that if I found out which brand is the strongest then it would prepare me for that moment.”

“And do you think that moment might be soon?” Mrs Holmes asked, putting her cutlery down in the centre of her plate as she had finished her food.

“Hell no.”

“Don’t talk to your mother like that.” Mr. Homes shouted, attempting to stop his teenage son from being so rude. He glared at his son, knife and fork being held out in front of him, pointing towards Sherlock, a subconscious attempt of a threat.

“Uhm... sorry.” Sherlock muttered, stopping for a moment after his father shouted but started to pick at his food again, as soon as he had apoligised.

“Thank you.”Mrs Holmes praised, deciding not to tell her son to stop playing with his food. It was obvious that he did not want to eat anything. “So.... do you have all the necessary things for when that moment comes.”

“Of course he has the necessary equipment. He has 10 boxes of condoms and 7 bottles of lube sitting on his desk.” Mr. Holmes voiced in from the end of the table, shovelling another forkful of food into his mouth.

She smiled at her husband, giving him the ‘I-know-that-dear-but-I-was-just-making-sure’ look. “Yes, well... do you know what to do when the time comes?”

“Did you not read the letter that I brought home last year... well, the letter that was emailed to you because I didn’t bring it home for you to sign...” Sherlock asked, rudely, realising his mistake before apologising again. “Sorry mother...  well we had a nurse come in to talk to us about it. It was very... informative.”

Mrs Holmes smiled at her son. He was slowly learning how to use his manners and was learning more about life. “That’s good darling. So we don’t need to go through it all with you.”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Well, you’d better start getting ready for bed soon as you have school in the morning.” Mr Holmes commented, hoping that for once his son might actually try and get some sleep.

“Alright father.”Sherlock replied before standing up and returning to his room to finish his experiment. Hopefully he would finish by the morning...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed that in each experience, Sherlock's personality changes. This is firstly because he gets more mature so his opinion on sex changes as he gets older and secondly he is in the teenage years so hormones are playing a big part in his life.


End file.
